Success In The Shadow Of Misfortune
by rese
Summary: BRiNItA’s challenge. Years have passed and so has any chance for their friendship to be renewed. But is it only due to stubborn hearts and the Atlantic Ocean, or has Laurie truly moved on to a better and brighter life without any Jo in it? AU.
1. Prologue

**Success in the Shadow of Misfortune**

By rese

**Summary:** Years have passed and so has any chance for their friendship to be renewed. But is it only due to stubborn hearts and the Atlantic Ocean, or has Laurie truly moved on to a better and brighter life without any Jo in it? Extremely AU.

**Disclaimer:** Little Women and its characters are owned by Louisa May Alcott and maybe some filming company which did a half-ass retelling. i.e. Not me.

**Challenge:** BRiNItA's challenge

"_Laurie could actually get famous with his music in Europe after being rejected by Jo, and he could fall for one of Amy's English friends or a friend of the Moffats I don't know, and Jo could be doing very well with her writing so she travels to Europe too, and you can write about how Laurie falls for her again, and you could describe how lots of new people around him don't like the influence Jo has on him once they start being best friend again... and I'm thinking Laurie could read a short story Jo publishes and realise it's about the two of them, and Jo really do love him..."_

…

**Prologue**

The lady was much older and browner than the adolescent girl that lived in the back of his mind and he mused on the irony that Europe should suit her so well, even without him.

She stood beside him, looking down, away, anywhere but at his face which he suddenly felt might not have been as handsome as Bella would tell him. She wore a dark green dress, typically broad in the front and puffed in the skirts and it made him smirk. American civilian women and their homely appearances. And he continued to look at the dress with disdain, as if he hadn't considered the wearers, and more importantly _that_ specific wearer, for many years the greatest creatures on earth.

He lifted a finger, brushing her linen collar, and saw her head turn away in confusion or perhaps discomfort under his dark gaze which unknowing to he, had haunted her for the past eight years.

He lowered his stare back to the white, pressed cloth by her neck and it reminded him of a time he'd been determined to forget, in a country he had abandoned for so long and the memory flood took him back to a place he hadn't wanted to go.


	2. Interim I

A/N: All quotes from the book are in Italics. I am not and can't pretend I'm Louisa May Alcott.

**Interim I**

…

"_I'll never marry you, and the sooner you believe it the better for both of us so now!"_

Her words echoed in his mind, bouncing off the walls which had shuddered with love for Jo not an hour before but now crumbled with every painful sentence he recalled from that atrocious proposal. Refusal. Rejection.

Laurie stroke harder with the oars, praying that the sheer force would strain the muscles and tendons in his shoulder and eventually snap his arms off. But the steady dip and yanking arc wasn't enough and making the turns harsher only left him going in circles in the tiny boat.

So he let go.

Gravity tugged the oars, and in mild fascination he watched the wooden rods slide off the side and sink into the water. It was too much to care now. If he would remain stranded out here it for all time it'd be no loss, he wouldn't be missed. Jo wouldn't miss him.

Laurie slid off the seat mage by a plank and hit the sunny side of the bough. He wanted to cry. He felt like crying. But he was more of a man than that and he merely folded his hands across his stomach in a brooding fashion and blinked fiercely, staring up at the sun, wondering if he could blind himself. Or at least accuse the terrible light for making his traitorous eyes fill with that heavy water.

Water, Laurie sniffed, lowering his eyes to peer past the ledge at the river that surrounded him. It wasn't too deep – if he were to compare it to the way he felt about Jo, well then it was hardly voluminous enough – but he couldn't quite see the bottom. Then again, Laurie was practically lying in the boat and wasn't afforded the greatest of angles for assessment.

Maybe it was deep enough, Laurie pondered, only briefly, for while he was spontaneous and wildly adventurous he hadn't truly the destructive rashness his Grandfather cursed in his father. But if Jo wouldn't have him… Laurie shaded his eyes as he looked about at the greenery he'd come to know with many ramblings, often accompanied by the very girl who had turned him into this sorry mess. Even the devil wouldn't have him he thought, acknowledging the handy shade made by his hand. But the water…

Laurie sat up, peeling off his vest. He was feeling something other than sorrow, something other than hurt with this plan and it sped the removal of his tie and shoes. Finally taking off his socks he dumped them on top of the coat he had thrown at the end when he first got to the boat.

Yes, he thought, climbing to his feet steadily so as not to tip the whole boat over, this was a damned good plan.

Laurie paused a moment, thinking that Jo would give him a good rounding had she known he was cursing, even in his head. But then he recalled – she did not care for him. Not in the way he so deeply, passionately cared for her and it made him think conclusively, in a way that left no room for interpretation or sensible views that she did not care at all.

So he yelled, cursing and blaspheming as loud as his voice would allow. All in spite.

And there Laurie stood, half ready to dive into the water, mouth agape and all fired up with thoughts of the nineteen-year old who would not love him back. The sun was uncomfortably warm on his flushed skin, the water temptingly full of promise and the boat tying him to his thoughts but the young man finally dived, reveling in the sensation of the cool liquid soaking and permeating and _accepting_.

…

Laurie arrived home in a mood that seemed better than anticipated. He almost felt as though that dreadful conversation had never happened and that Jo was very likely sitting with her sisters next door and possibly thinking of him in the same way he unbeknownst to her did. Almost. It was a very loose almost.

The young man waved away the maid that met him at the door, preferring to hang his own hat and coat, feeling that it might help close that awful day. It helped too that she wouldn't be standing about staring at his saturated form.

Quietly he crept up the stairs, determined to change not only his clothes but his drawn, exhausted expression before he met the old gentleman. It wouldn't do to have the old man know just yet. He had his mind set on it too, thought Laurie with a large lump in his throat even as he loosened the tie he had refastened at the river. He won't hardly feel the same and I shouldn't think he'd understand so I'll keep it to myself, was Laurie's decision made with manly effort in mind as he changed the wet brown trousers for a pair of pressed grey.

Fastening the green and grey striped tie about his neck once more Laurie stilled in front of the floor length mirror. Was it enough? He looked down at the length of his tall figure which seemed to sag with the disappointing knowledge. Jo didn't love him and it was written all over himself.

He straightened up pulling back his shoulders as he was taught to do, as early as six and took a deep breath, trying vainly to relax his stance into nonchalance and stop his brow from drawing.

It barely worked but Laurie decided it would have to do and down the staircase he marched with the air of a man who had yet to face the firing squad, even after confession.

…

"_Then there's an end of it!"_

Laurie slumped on the stool and speedily shook off his Grandfather's hand. Jo had told him! He felt betrayed in an odd way, as though she had taken some right but all in all the whole situation seemed only to dredge up the feelings he thought he'd begun to bury in the river.

Jo, Jo, Jo.

He couldn't get his mind off her, even as the old gentleman talked unusually gently, soothing with his deep, throaty voice. It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough that she wouldn't give him the answer he so desperately wished but she would disappoint the man who was busy trying to catch his attention.

"_You won't care to stay at home now, perhaps?"_

That struck another note inside him and Laurie had the urge to hit the keys with his fist. _"I don't intend to run away from a girl. Jo can't prevent my seeing her, and I shall stay and do it as long as I like."_ See if she would drive him away! Laurie felt his heart which he thought long broken, dead and buried swell with the passion of his mind. Yes, he would sit and watch and plague and follow and haunt her every step. Jo wouldn't escape – she might not want him but he wanted her and no one could deny him the chance to hold onto what little he could gain.

"_Not if you are the gentleman I think you. I'm disappointed, but the girl can't help it…_" Laurie stopped listening again and felt his heart drop. Perhaps it was only the cavity left behind that had tricked him into believing he felt once more. He couldn't do that to Jo. He wouldn't. _"… Where will you go?_"

To hell or some bottomless, lightless pit he thought. "_Anywhere. I don't care what becomes of me_" he said and felt the odd, sickening urge to laugh and so he did. He had nothing! No one! No use!

"_Take it like a man, and don't do anything rash, for God's sake_." There was a pause in which Laurie imagined his grandfather to be searching for some way to steer the conversation off the path of danger he felt determined to drag himself down. "_Why not go abroad, as you planned, and forget it?"_

Laurie swallowed hard and allowed a moment for his eyes to shut before he answered both questions in a strong, but pained voice. "_I can't_." And if he had any say in it he didn't mean to ever.

"_But_ _you've been wild to go, and I promised you should when you got through college_." The old man's brow creased in a silent sort of desperation as he watched the boy's back with concern. Going had been the only thing Laurie had said would get him through the demand he'd made on the boy.

"_Ah, but I didn't mean to go alone!_" Laurie stood quickly, walking with a brisk gait to the door of the room. He was changing fast out of this controlled young man he'd forced into existence to face these questions. He had to leave before he became the soft-shelled boy again and blew everything off the walls with his violent pain.

"_I don't ask you to go alone. There's someone ready and glad to go with you, anywhere in the world_."

Laurie paused, letting the possibilities of that statement lessen the haste of his exit and mind. "_Who, Sir?_" he asked hesitantly.

"_Myself_," was the frank answer.

Laurie turned about immediately going to the old man, an uncomfortable look on his face, for the reply was not one he had expected but he was touched nonetheless. "_I'm a selfish brute, but you know Grandfather –_"

"_Lord help me, yes, I do know, for I've been through it all before_," Mr. Laurence interrupted the young man, hearing the emotion in Laurie's voice and fearing it might cause the words to stick. "_Once in my own young days, and then with your father. Now, my dear boy, just sit quietly down and hear my plan. It's all settled, and can be carried out at once._"

Laurie let the elder man take him by the shoulder and guide him to the chair. He was determined to lack effort and enthusiasm for this idea which was entirely like his own before Jo had refused him. "_Well, sir, what is it?_"

Mr. Laurence outlined the plan, including details of the business which seemed to act as the basis of this adventure overseas. Laurie sat staring at the wall as the old man took a seat opposite; speaking of a future that his grandson had no real idea of ever becoming reality. Nodding diligently along with his grandfather's words it was soon apparent that the elderly gentleman was to be travelling with him closely. This did not sit well with the already reluctant young man.

"_But you hate travelling, Sir. I can't ask it of you at your age_."

Quite aware of the circumstances, Mr. Laurence firmly reassured the boy that he was not yet invalid and would enjoy it immensely. He did not just yet wish to leave Laurie in his present state for he was sure that rashness would be on his mind in such a mood.

Laurie shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the plan and was ready to politely refuse the well meant gentleman before Mr. Laurence added, "_I don't mean to be a mar plot or a burden. I go because I think you'd feel happier than if I was left behind. I don't intend to gad about with you, but leave you free to go where you like, while I amuse myself in my own way. I've friends in London and Paris, and should like to visit them. Meantime you can go to Italy, Germany, Switzerland, where you will, and enjoy pictures, music, scenery, and adventures to your heart's content._"

His _heart's content_. Laurie looked away towards the ground by the grand window, sparing his grandfather a rather disturbing look. Should he have his heart's content he would not be sitting in the room listening to Mr. Laurence persuade him to leave and venture out, but he should be sitting in the forest still, listening to Jo laugh as they made fanciful but undoubtedly heartfelt plans for the future. Now Laurie felt he had no future.

Pictures, music and scenery. Laurie focused on that part of the promise, hoping that like a buoy it might rescue him from his fast sinking feelings. He would have very much _liked_ to experience those things uniquely European again, but once more he remembered that he had planned to with Jo.

Music. That held some sort of unexplainable interest though, however warped and negative Laurie thought of it at that moment. It might just provide him with enough depth to drown in.

Letting his downhearted thoughts escape in one long sigh he spoke, "_Just as you like, Sir. It doesn't matter where I go or what I do._"

"_It does to me, remember that, my lad_." Mr. Laurence said with care, "_I give you entire liberty, but I trust you to make an honest use of it. Promise me that, Laurie._" He leaned forward, praying that the boy would not repeat his father's mistakes.

"_Anything you like, Sir_." He replied dejectedly, propping his head to stare out the window in a manner all too like the old man's dead son. And it took only a moment's more silence before he left the room behind, taking the unknowingly important promise and all his moodiness to shut in his bedroom for the rest of that awful day.


	3. Chapter 1

For _literaryfreak_: if only I were the catching type!

A/N: Sorry folks, this one's going to take forever. I wanted it to be extremely long and time consuming to read which means it's gonna be the same to write it. Ps I changed the length of time to two-three years instead of, what was it? Eight? I dunno, but Laurie don't meet Amy until he's 23 in the book so that's how this is gonna work. I know two and a bit years doesn't seem like much to set up a burgeoning career for both of them but bear with me.

…

"You've become bitter," Jo remarked her piercing grey eyes filled with disdain, judgment and worse, disappointment.

"And you've become worldly, _mademoiselle_," Laurie replied quickly, not ready to let Jo analyse him simply out of the sake of pity. He stared back defiantly until Jo's gaze dropped down to the napkin her still slender hands were fiddling with.

She hadn't changed much, Laurie noticed but he could see how well adulthood became her for she had lost all jaunty joints and awkward lines and was a lady whom any might remark if not for her immediately plain look. But Laurie did note, and he did see and despite a little under three years of darkening thoughts and pained memories Jo had lost none of the qualities, at least from what he might have told from a day's re-acquaintance, that had made him enjoy her company and ultimately make the foolish mistake of falling in love.

It was strangely pleasing and disturbing all at once, for it lead him to be concerned that he might be in very real danger of letting her close again.

"I suppose that's true," said Jo at length, surprising Laurie. "I've done a great deal of learning away from Orchard House, and it seems that my castle in the air is far more realizable than I had actually imagined." He saw a slight pang of regret in Jo's faraway look and wondered what might have sparked that in the girl he once knew to live in the now.

"Mine too," he admitted thinking of his manuscript covered apartment and the dark green sofa where he sat; pouring the misery he kept close onto paper for money. "Seems my Italian blood is finally making its use."

"Yes, I heard." Jo looked away from the table, thinking of the time she first heard that Laurie had made a name in the life he had always hoped to and that he was, quite frankly almost famous, or rather at least in the back streets of Rome and the courtly parts of Paris. "Amy wrote me" she explained, "I'm not entirely sure if it was in February or March," Jo lied, she knew it was on February 12th because she had cried that whole afternoon, thinking how unfair it was that her youngest sister should have to report news to her that Jo should have known because _she_ was his dearest friend.

Laurie leaned back in the iron chair, shifting the tall black hat onto the other leg. "I haven't seen her in… well not since America." He finished quickly, not wanting to dredge up timelines and the topic they were both consciously ignoring. "Does she still keep to Aunt March?"

"Yes," said Jo, turning her gaze back to the table cloth and clutching her teacup a little tighter than before. "I believe she might be in France this very moment, only it's more difficult to keep track of young persons than before."

"You sound like you're at least fifty Miss March."

Jo looked up, finally meeting the black eyes that had been flicking off and on her form since their meeting. _Miss March_, she repeated the tone in her mind, displeased with the sound and its total indifference.

"I was only speaking generally."

"I see."

But Jo had to wonder if he really did.

…

They were strolling about some unnamed park, unattached by arm which made the whole idea ridiculous to Laurie's sense of fashion and all too familiar to days when Jo was cross or prickly. They talked inconsequentially and Jo watched with concern as he winked at many a lady who passes them by. She entertained questions in her mind, not unfairly, about what new expensive pleasures he had acquired since their parting.

"Will you see Amy then?" Laurie asked with the air of someone who didn't really care which way she answered.

"I suppose so, if my tour goes to France. One can never be too sure which way the wind will blow."

At that moment a tall man, with young features and the expression of an intellectual came briskly towards them and Laurie supposed that he must have known Jo for he didn't recognize the fellow at all.

"Jo! Jo March," he called and Laurie watched with barely contained interest as Jo smiled at the newcomer and stepped forward to greet him. "I've been looking all about for you. I thought we agreed to meet at the bridge by two?"

Jo looked down, pulling out a fine-looking pocket watch. "Oh! Henry, I'm sorry I lost track of time" she said upon finding it was half past the appointed time. Laurie felt a small bubble of satisfaction when she turned red at the thought that he had distracted her.

"Well, no harm done, I've found you now and we should be going." Laurie's brows rose at the insistent manner the fellow took Jo's arm and unknowingly rude way he was prepared to leave. "Oh! Wait, I suppose I should ask who this chap is?"

Jo was still a shade darker than normal, clearly embarrassed for her friend's behaviour. "This is Theodore Laurence, he's an old…" Jo paused searching for the appropriate noun. Friend? He was so much more, and nothing now. Suitor? That was unfair and too telling.

"Neighbour." Laurie interjected, holding his hand out to the stranger. The Englishman took it and shook with a fierce grip that Laurie hoped he didn't have on Jo's arm and they smiled, briefly on Laurie's part but politely.

"Well, my pleasure I'm sure."

"I'm sure." Laurie echoed quietly, shifting his weight to the other leg in the slightly awkward atmosphere that had settled over the three.

"Henry Thompson is organizing the tour. I'm not quite sure what he does but he takes care of everything." Jo pointed her hand towards the man who had her by the arm and smiled uncomfortably as Laurie's right eyebrow cocked wondering just what 'everything' defined exactly.

Mr. Thompson coughed a little and began his goodbyes on behalf of them both tugging Jo off as he spoke, "Right well, very nice to meet you. We should be going, so much to do not enough hours in the day to do it, you know how it is. Right, Goodday!"

Jo was unable to get a word of farewell in but managed a very apologetic look over her shoulder that was bound to keep Laurie up stewing over it for the next two nights alone. The tall lean man turned about, desperately trying to leave the new concerns this meeting with Jo had conjured up behind.

"Wind indeed." He said to no one, strolling out of the park with lean legs and the memory of a short girl on the arm of a very unlikeable man.


	4. Chapter 2

It was unusually warm and Laurie loosened the fashionable strip of material about his neck, tossing it to the ground and letting his shirt hand open, too lazy to move from his sprawled spot on the green sofa with one leg over the arm.

He felt drunk. For a moment he wondered if he actually was but a quick lift of his head cleared up the matter for not a bottle was to be found.

Jo.

It always came back to her. He hadn't been able to think of anything else since the accidental meeting two days ago accepting of course the relationship of the unknown man to his old neighbour and how any touching or words by either spun into something suspicious and all too likely more than platonic. Yet he could only hope Jo was as cold to the man as she was to him.

She was cold.

But when he brushed against her not entirely by accident…

He herd a bell sound below, dissimilar to the kitschy chimes his landlord had seen fit to place on every balcony and felt his body cool with recognition. She was coming back after all and the loud French of this morning had been nothing but a rouse, a low trick on her part to be sure or so Laurie considered as he counted the stairs she would be climbing, fashionable lace skirts in tow.

The door creaked open and Laurie exhaled the thought of 'fashion' reminding him all too well of a different March sister he regretted to have neglected. Pushing all thoughts to do with American ladies and the months of the year he concentrated on listening to the light footsteps that scuffed between the carpet rugs and wooden floorboard.

A pair of cold hands wrapped around his face, covering his closed eyes. There wasn't anyone else it could have been and yet Laurie couldn't give her that smile she always waited for despite having seen it only once. Those days of playtime were long passed by, dying with those unspeakable feelings for the girl he wasn't thinking of.

"Laurie."

The hands were removed and he opened his black eyes to find a tall lady with finely curled hair the colour of mahogany. The startlingly blue eyes that watched him were unreadable, setting off her olive skin in a way that the Greek gods could only have envied.

"Isobella."

He tucked a hand under his head and tugged his lips into a tired smile that spoke volumes about his thoughts and present state to the woman. Her fingers felt of winter as they found their way to his thick hair, lightly touching his forehead as her nails scraped the brow another girl once so innocently admired.

"Laurie, have you been here all day?" she asked, her accent sounding clear through her vowels. Laurie watched her with that tired grin, musing over the blend of her Italian heritage and French upbringing before he even thought of answering when he realised she was concerned. It was difficult to tell with these European singers.

"Yes," he said with an oddly defiant tone he thought he'd lost.

"Like this?"

"Oui."

" –don't be smart with me!-" said Isobella, her temper rising with his silly grin. He had never teased her before and she wasn't certain if she liked it, feeling foolish for not understanding why he acted so. Certainly before they were well acquainted she had seen him tease many young ladies in a manner almost vicious as he flirted terribly.

"I'm not being smart, Bella." Laurie said, returning back to English and drawling in a grating manner for the lady's benefit. She scowled and disappeared from his peripheral view while he waited for her to finish unpacking what he hoped was more wine.

_Jo would have played_, he couldn't help by think and wondered if that was why he was acting so.

"Have you even changed?" There was clinking behind his head in the direction of the kitchen and he sighed heavily. If he had been indoors all day did she really think he would consider appearance at the top of his list of things to do? _Well_, Laurie rolled over to face the back of the sofa and frowned, _it's definitely at the top of my list of_ things to avoid "Well?" she was by his shoulder now and he could tell simply from the tone of her voice that her little hands were balled into fists resting on her hips. "How happy" Laurie thought, "that she should be blessed with such expression in this business." She let out an exasperated sigh and for a short instance Laurie felt a little sorry that he was so trying for truly his mood had nothing to do with the woman or all her insanities that she displayed earlier the morning.

_Jo_.

He groaned and rolled to face Isobella again to find her pouting as she rearranged the small amount of furniture in the room, clearly vexed with her lover's behaviour. Laurie sat up slowly, swinging his long legs off the arm of the sofa and pulling his shirt about him in a more conservative manner.

"Isobella," the low tenor of his voice stopped the fine young lady and she waited, arms crossed for the explanation she had anticipated the moment she walked through the door. "I'm sorry," Laurie said simply, running a hand through his dark hair at the lie that she willingly accepted or so he judged by the way her thin lips smiled at him. Bella moved towards the sofa and joined him, taking his large hand in her still cold ones.

"You've just overworked yourself… and I knew this would happen! Didn't I say so this morning, _mon chou_?" she smiled, evidently pleased with herself as she patted his hand and ignoring the slightly confused nod from Laurie. "Well," she nodded again looking about for what Laurie couldn't say. "Where are your new manuscripts?"

"And there it is!" thought Laurie, as he reclaimed a hand to bury his face in. "Please, Bella, not now. Not just now."

"But they are done, _non_?"

Again, Laurie nodded slowly and again, his stomach dropped lower. He wasn't sorry. He hadn't overworked. He hadn't completed any new manuscripts. He wasn't in love with the singer. Still, he couldn't stop himself from leading them both to the little bedroom with the big bed and he couldn't help but think the only true thing he had said to her that day was that he wasn't being smart.

Smartness was left far behind in America at the completion of college.

…

A/N: I am SO sorry that this update has taken so incredibly long to happen. I've actually had half of this chapter done for ages now but I got stumped. I hope it wasn't too shoddy and that you'll excuse me for a lack of updating all around. My trials are just around the corner and school is just ridiculously hectic. I haven't abandoned the other stories and I promise to see if I can get round to doing them damn soon. Again, sorry.


	5. Chapter 3

"Just leave it on the table, thank you." Jo said, pointing in the direction behind her for the maid as she held the curtain open, surveying the dusty-looking city at sunrise. The haze had risen early with her and as Jo scanned the shades of yellow and orange married with brown she found her mind not on the pollution but on the man she had encountered at long last yesterday.

He wasn't at all how she remembered him. His posture was all wrong and the expression that haunted his face… well, he just wasn't Laurie anymore.

Jo turned from the window and crossed the small room to find the letter the maid left, her heart thumping a little harder with her assumptions of what it contained. It was undoubtedly from Laurie; she hadn't had time to tell her family where she had just recently arrived.

Her hand was unexpectedly shaking when she reached out to pick it up and Jo clenched it shut, disgusted by her reaction. Hadn't she thought not a moment ago just how different he was? How he made her almost despise him for all his coldness? With determination she reached out again and caught the letter up with as little fuss as possible, ripping open the top with the ivory-handled knife left beside it on the silver platter.

Honestly, Jo thought disapprovingly, she had never been surrounded by so much useless wealth in her life. Even when they still had their fortune as young girls, the two oldest March sisters were never overly spoilt by fancy ornaments or heirloom instruments, their mother and father already concerned with the potential of seemingly harmless riches overwhelming the two girls and spoiling their dispositions.

And Laurie, well she had been in the Lawrence's house many times and saw the temptations lying about but she was proud of her boy and found him positively generous when he wished to be. She didn't know who the man she had lunch with yesterday was, he smoked and smirked and was sickeningly charming to anyone with a corset.

Jo unfolded the letter, taking a deep breath before she read

_Miss March,_

_You are cordially invited to attend the opening of fellow author…_

Refolded the letter she watched it fall solemnly to the table below her hands. Jo had honestly believed that the first words would have been "dear Jo, what ho!" but it seemed her deepest worry was true, and after all the time that had passed, Laurie really didn't care anymore.

Taking the few bumbling steps to the chair by the window, Jo slumped into it, feeling the convolution overtaking her mind once more as it had so many times since she refused him that day in the grove. Laurie's apathy was something she both feared and hated, having never met the cold wall until he left America, when the mail never came and the gossip never reached her eager ears.

In the end, his indifference was worse than any passionate argument, shouting match or shoving round they had ever shared because Jo knew he cared, in his voice and his expression it was written that there wasn't a chance he'd let things be when the two of them were in such a mess.

Jo bit her lip, her fist clenching and unclenching under her chin as she stared out the window trying her hardest to pretend she wasn't crying.

…

Exactly two weeks later the letter she had hoped for arrived and Jo paused only to wonder how he got her address before opening it.

Retreating to her chair by the window, as she had often found herself doing when her thoughts turned to the young man, Jo sat, breathing deeply before she let herself greedily read the note, missing lines and skipping words as she raced to take the whole letter in.

_Josephine March,_

There was no title or endearment, just her name and Jo felt a lump rise in her throat that they had come to this when addressing each other.

_I'm afraid that my preoccupation with my following announcement has overtaken the necessary pleasantries and polite contact I might have made earlier, so do please forgive me on that part._

_Well, my announcement as I'm sure you are continuing to read only for it, is that my music has been accepted by the local theatre to be performed on the 28__th__ March, the following Wednesday, commencing at 7 that eve._

Here she looked at the date at the top of the parchment and saw that he had in fact written it last Tuesday and that the performance was in two days time. Jo looked up, scanning the horizon afforded by the window, times and dates racing through her head as she considered how much longer she would remain in the city and just how early Laurie had actually thought of her. It was the latter thought that had her squinting at the grey cloud that hovered its way over the tall apartments in the distance.

_So there it is, and I hope you'll be able to hear it. _

_I understand if not._

_-Theodore Laurence_

Jo was frowning once she reached the end and she let her grip on the paper crumple its edges as she leaned back to consider the thousands of meanings behind his vacant sentences, her brow creasing when she realised that she never would have done so four or so years ago.

_But there is was._

…

"We don't have time!"

"Oh please," Jo said smartly, wrapping the black lace shawl about her shoulders and cupping the ends of her hair as she bustled about the foyer of the building. "It's only one evening out of our whole schedule; we can afford to have a little time for fun, surely!"

"Fun!" Henry cried, tapping the top of his very tall hat before taking her arm and leading her out of the room. "Goodness, Jo March, if you had your way we'd only have time for fun and writing with our heads barely on. Just how well _did_ you know this chap, anyway?" Mr. Thompson added slyly as they crossed the wet street, missing the sudden way Jo lost her footing, certain that it was simply the cobblestones as usual that made her grip tighten ever so slightly and grit her teeth.

"He was a good friend, and good friends go to see their good triumphs!"

"Very well!" Thompson clutched the brim of his hat and wisely said nothing else on the matter once they climbed into the carriage and were on their way.

Jo wrung her hands, jostled about in the little box and trying not to bite her lip for countenance as she was wont to do for she would likely draw blood and so her hands folded and unfolded restlessly.

"Are you well?" Thompson asked quietly, one brow crossed as he watched his counterpart's actions. Jo was looking out the window with such concentration that he quickly checked to see if there was something of actual interest there. Finding none he turned to her again and debated whether to take her hand or not.

"Quite." Jo finally returned her tone clipped and he swiftly redrew the hand he had decided to lift towards her. She was icy once more and Henry closed his eyes briefly, knowing he had crossed that indefinable line again and Jo was sure to treat him unkindly that evening, keeping him at that unbreachable distance she had affronted everyone in London with the first day they met.

"Good, good." He spoke softly and stared out the opposite window.


	6. Chapter 4

Laurie fiddled with his cuffs, frowning at the shiny cufflinks that had been given to him on his birthday by Bella. Really they were the most detestable cufflinks he'd ever received but it had given her pleasure to pick out something he "so desperately needed" and he resigned himself to smiling politely and wearing them to attractions he had little liking for.

But this evening was of some importance. He didn't know why he had pulled them out of the box in his drawer and donned them as they'd left the apartment that afternoon.

A shrill voice caught his attention and he shook off his nerves that had him fiddling, wincing as he recognised whose voice the shouting belonged to. He would have to face them all sometime before the heavy red curtain lifted at seven and it was as good a time as any to tear away from his little alcove and thank them for playing goodness knows whatever he had scribbled onto forty pages in a drunken mess.

Strange what passed for music in these parts of town.

"Mr Laurence!" a nervous looking boy five or so years younger than Laurie pulled back the curtain that shielded his alcove from the rest of the back stage. "You're… wanted sir," he said tactfully, pausing when the loud female voice interrupted the strings warm up.

"Yes. Thank you, Michel," Laurie said tiredly, following the lad towards the hullabaloo.

…

Jo was proud of Henry when they arrived at the theatre, walking through the crowded doors he didn't once use the expression of distaste Jo had thought shameful and she even smiled at him for his efforts.

The theatre was less than what he had expected but he saw the way Jo's eyes lit up at the hustle of people with coats of varying expense pressed against each other to squeeze through the foyer into the surprisingly large auditorium.

She always saw people for what they could be and he supposed this friend of hers was near reaching whatever fancy she had aimed him for. Jo was staring wide-eyed at the rusting magnificence around them and he hadn't the heart to speak his real feelings for the somewhat poor place in that part of town.

"Jo, your coat," he motioned for the article just before they passed the doors and thrusted it into the young boys waiting hands before he lead her in by the small of her back. He was careful not to stand to close to the woman almost equal to his height after making her cross in the carriage. But ever the gentleman, Henry was sure Jo chose where and which seat first whilst making certain she wasn't crushed or swallowed in the crowd.

"Here should do it, don't you think?" she said pointing to the seats directly before them and he smiled his answer, falling easily into the seat beside her. It was a position he had come to enjoy after hours of readings and important book circles, it was a position of importance and prize for Jo hadn't ever given him a sour look in it yet.

He turned to the woman beside him and smiled, wondering what made her fidget about with her purse strings so much. Perhaps it was the crowd or perhaps it was the thrill of being out but when she showed glimpses of the innocent, inexperienced girl beneath the confident woman he had been affronted with daily it made his heart swell just a little.

Henry folded his hands calmly in his lap and turned his attention to the red curtain that covered the stage, wondering just what sort of music would drift from it that evening and if it would disappoint Jo in the slightest.

If it would improve him in the eyes of someone whose greys had only come alive at the mention of her friend.

…

Laurie had yet to stop frowning, even as he addressed the orchestra in what he hoped was an inspiring tone but he knew was too solemn. Isobella was smiling prettily at the back behind the enormous woman who had been struggling to outdo the tall, lean beauty for the past hour warm-up and the picture of them both did nothing to soothe his nerves.

The rivalry would prove to make the evening either outstanding or horrendous.

"So thank you," Laurie began to finish his impromptu speech, "each and every one of you I thank and wish you the best of luck this evening. I'm sure you'll make it memorable." He said quietly, moving from the podium for the conductor to a spot off-stage next to Michel. All he wanted was for this one evening to be special for the one person who he prayed sat in the crowd he had seen piling into the theatre with a quick look out of his alcove earlier.

It was important to him to see that she knew he had grown up. Even without her help.

"Or love," Laurie mumbled under his breath as he turned away before Bella could blow a kiss as she was ushered to the front of the long stage beside the plump woman whose blouse plunged lower than what the conductor considered necessary.

The short grave man tapped his baton against the lectern and the shuffling from the musicians in front of him ceased. He looked one last time over at Laurie before nodding to the hands off-stage to lift the curtain, hushing the audience almost instantly.

Laurie found himself unable to stop from looking out behind the curtain that shielded the small crew from the audience's gaze. The opening strings began to play and he squinted, searching for a face he wasn't sure he wanted to find. If he could only be sure she would come!

He had made it to the fifth row from the stage in scanning when the opening harmonies from the sopranos began. Bella had perfect pitch, there was no denying it and he couldn't stop the smile of pleasure for the minor note she sang. It was exactly how he intended it, slow but dynamic with the gut-wrenching pain that had arrested him in the month he'd written it.

If Jo was there, she would know. Laurie swallowed, looking at the seventh row. She would have to know.

Ursola took the higher notes now and Laurie spared a quick glance to the stage beside him to see how the larger woman took the change. She was breathing professionally and all traces of bitterness had disappeared in her appeal to the audience in eloquent Italian, "shall I never love another?"

Laurie's black eyes returned to the eighth row, his heart beating a little faster with the public profession of his deepest feelings. His eyes skipped past the elderly couple, the young woman beside them stretching to see the stage, two men in matching blue suits until he stopped upon the person he sought.

Jo sat towards the centre of the theatre, intently watching the stage. He could not read her expression well from so far away, but her concentration was evident. She was listening, reading and no doubt trying desperately to understand the language she never took the pains to learn.

It was the first time he was ever grateful Jo couldn't understand the exact meaning of his work.

She looked as thin and steady as he remembered from their brief meeting so many weeks ago. She was hardly the young woman he remembered romping about with through the woods of their neighbourhood, but in features and countenance she was almost unchanged. He hadn't lied when he told her she'd become worldly. She looked just that in the prim, dark and too becoming dress she wore, matching the Italian women with intelligent fashion that he equated Amy with.

Laurie cleared his throat quietly, feelings he had sworn to suppress were fighting their way from his hear to mind in his unnoticed examination of her. He couldn't love her, not after all this time, time spent purging and turning her into the cruel mistress of love past. He couldn't love her.

Jo suddenly broke her transfixed gaze at the stage to turn to a man beside her, her face ducking as they whispered together. Laurie watched the pair enviously, dozens of memories resurfacing as they spoke in a world untouched by the people around them. He wondered if he and Jo looked just as well together those few years ago.

Unknowingly Laurie's eyes narrowed as they fell on the young man who was grinning when Jo turned back to the stage. It was the first time he'd seen Jo's friend even approach the side of happiness and he had to admit, not without a knot in his stomach, that it suited him. It took years off the face that hid behind a dark moustache and heavy brows, belying his age.

Laurie's hand tightened on the rail as he continued to watch the man who looked unenthused by the performance. He contented himself with the thought that he was taller, and perhaps a little leaner, but it was difficult to truly tell when a man sat so. He saw how the man turned to Jo throughout the song, watching her expression as earnestly as he himself had and it made him wonder once more just what their relationship was.

Someone coughed in the second row and it brought his attention back to the present. Michel was standing a few feet away, quietly waiting for the man who wrote the piece to return to his alcove and Laurie took pity on his anxious face and followed the boy back to his reserved seat. He would have time later to watch Jo and the man who followed her.

…

Jo watched the stage, falling a little more in love with the heroine every time she began a new passage in the performance. Her accent was exceptional, accurate without contrasting too much with the heavier Spanish woman who stood behind her, often glaring much to Jo's amusement at the slight woman in front of her.

More than once did Jo wonder where Laurie might have been in the swarm of people in the theatre. She wasn't sure where the composer would sit and it caused her to fidget about much to the annoyance of her neighbours. Jo's hands folded and unfolded throughout the performance, they played with the well-loved tassels of her purse and scratched the back of her neck nervously until a white gloved hand rested on them.

Jo turned to find Henry watching her with concern and she smiled unconvincingly at him until he removed his hand. He was the epitome of propriety and Jo was thankful to have him as her manager, had it been anyone else she knew not how the hours in close company would pass so smoothly. But he hadn't an ounce of mischief about him and that often proved him to be dull.

Jo sighed, turning towards the orchestra again, relaxing when she heard a passage that sounded all too familiar. She had been helping Beth scrape Amy's burnt potatoes off the oven when Laurie had bounced in through the back door, whistling a tune that made Jo instantly smile with pleasure. 'How did he do it?' she'd asked him, laughing when he twirled her around in a particularly jolly sweep and he'd announced in a voice that made tired Beth blush deeply, 'it's the march breeze'.

Jo was listening to the same tune again but it was different. A change in key made it hauntingly bitter and Jo's heart clenched when the lead soprano's voice broke into a whisper at the end of each trill. It wasn't the same joyous ditty he'd whistle down the street or hum when she'd tried vainly to concentrate in his company, it was a hollow reminder of the damage she'd done to her boy.

Jo sat back in her seat, feeling a little smaller than when she first walked in. The two singers sung on, duelling over the notes with as much resentment as they were composed. The sullen tune with high strings and moving cello broke Jo's heart, the song was tearing her apart and she knew without a shadow of doubt that Laurie had meant for it to be so.

He had called her there to show her how exquisitely painful she'd made his existence.

When the performance ended, the theatre erupted in awed applause and the passing comments of 'tortured genius' and 'heart-braking' tore Jo apart inside. She smiled wanly at Henry when he offered her hand and she took it shaking slightly, wishing herself a thousand miles away.

…

Laurie stood by the cloak room, his hands in his pockets with a cigarette sagging unhappily from his lips. He listened carefully to each opinion voiced about him, the criticism croaked by the old women, the empathy and cooing of the girls and the short, clipped comments of their partners. If they had known who stood by the door, looking serious at the stained red carpet they might have guarded their words and looks. But as it was, Laurie was thankful he was not required to appear before crowds and have his face known and judged.

At long last, the right shade of green swirled past his feet and Laurie looked up to find Jo looking around the room in consternation. Her hand was tucked close under the arm of the fellow who had sat beside her and closer to them now, he recognised the chap as the rude man in the park. Laurie frowned but stepped forward, placing a cold hand on Jo's arm just as she was ready to move further into the room.

"Laurie!" Jo practically squeaked. Laurie's face was unreadable to her and she stepped to the side he indicated, tugging Thompson with her as they moved out of the way. "I – "

The tall young man watched her struggle for words before he smirked and bowed a little, his eyes moving to watch the other man. Thompson's brow was creased and Laurie guessed that he was unsure what to do or say to save Jo.

"You came," Laurie said neither with the relief he first felt when he saw her, nor the bristle the situation conjured within him. Jo smiled, recovering quickly and pulled the hand he hadn't been able to avoid staring at out from under her company's arm.

Jo wished she could embrace him as they used to, expelling the awkwardness of meeting but she could no more hold him than he could kiss her hand as the Europeans did. Instead she settled for a quiet "of course" as he leaned against the gold-toned wall paper of the dim room, watching the pair intently.

"Did you like it?" he asked tightly, directing the question to Jo before he stared at Henry, confusing the man into answering the question first.

"It was unlike my usual taste but I found it moving all the same. Jolly good job."

Laurie continued to stare at the man without acknowledgement of what was spoken until Henry coughed awkwardly, feeling the tension all the more acutely than when they first met. This tall, young man was apathetic and looked all too much like the men he was never popular with in college with his sullen brow and moody posture.

"It was very, very good. Truly," Jo wanted to call him Teddy, she was so proud that he had found a way to make his dream fly, but when his eyes fell on hers, she found the name choked in her throat. The cigarette in his mouth dipped and Jo found herself frowning at the short stick, thinking he looked and acted nothing like the boy she knew as 'Teddy' and she had only herself to blame.

"I asked if you liked it, Miss March, not what it was." He took the cigarette between his fingers, standing free of the wall, looking down at her.

Jo felt small once more but she drew herself up to her full height, displeased that someone she cared for dearly should use such a tone. She knew what he wanted her to say. She knew what he meant, that she if she shouldn't like the piece or how it made her feel she shouldn't like him. It was a pure expression of Laurie and to hate it would be to hate him. Jo was moved by the composition, she was awed by its execution and the thought he must have put in to achieve such a tear at her heart, but she didn't like it. She didn't like how it made her wish she could run and hide in the garret, or push him about for being so horrible and obstinate about it. She didn't like that she deserved it. She didn't like what she'd done to him.

"I – " but Jo was spared ever having to answer for the crowd pushed quite suddenly, bumping Jo against Laurie as they spotted the lead soprano approach the foyer. Jo quickly stepped back, her limbs tingling from the steady hand Laurie reflexively placed against her waist and she glanced up to find him looking back as intensely as ever.

"Laurie! Laurie!" Jo turned to see the soprano call him in a surprisingly thick French accent. Still close to him, she heard Laurie sigh tiredly as he flicked at the dying cigarette in the corner of her vision. Henry took her arm and pulled her out of the bustling edge of people, closer to his side of the wall in their corner as Laurie gave one long last indiscernible look towards Jo before he headed for the glowing soprano.

Jo watched on intently as he weaved his way through the crowd a head taller than many of them until he reached her. She was thanking them all earnestly until she saw Laurie where she smiled one of the prettiest, most stunning smiles Jo had ever seen. She immediately embraced the tall man, not that much shorter than himself and kissed his cheek before them all. Jo stared, her mouth unintentionally open, not missing the quick glance Laurie sent back when the woman first touched him.

"Wasn't she splendid?" Henry asked her, leaning closer to her ear to be heard. Jo nodded absentmindedly, closing her mouth to frown at the picture the tall couple made almost swallowed in a sea of praise.

"Splendid," Jo repeated, a touch of bitterness in her voice as she clenched her purse and turned to claim their coats and hats.

…

A/N: So there you go folks! I finally got you another chapter (and it's a long one at that). Sorry it's taken forever but my laptop with all my fics on it died and took everything with it, so I've had to start from scratch where I'd written a few things for this. Sigh. Well I should get off and study for my English final tomorrow. One day I won't leave things to the last minute. Really.

Oh and I think it was 'the doctor's next dance' (ps doctor who love) who mentioned Henry from North and South, and yeah, Henry Thompson is a nod to him. Whilst he's no John Thornton he makes me feel ridiculously sorry for him.

Love


	7. Chapter 5

Laurie lay strewn across the bed, the cool breeze banging the single window in the room open

Laurie lay strewn across the bed, the cool breeze banging the single window in the room open. The air cooled against his bare stomach, tingling goosebumps pricking at the chilled touch that felt all too familiar.

All the women in his life were cold.

It wasn't the right time of the year to lay about in bed with only sheets separating nature's steely grip from the body and Laurie quickly got up to shut the window. He tugged his pants up properly around his waist, watching the street below. Laurie knew the familiars, the old gypsy woman in her red skirt, the two tall men who pretended they were strangers and the poor beggar children who never moved from the corner until nightfall. He saw the way they acknowledged each other, moving about their spaces in a territorial dance he had learnt the steps to within the first week of residence.

He wondered when the dirty back streets of Venice had become commonplace.

Laurie moved from the glass panes when a face he recognised looked up. Quickly he threw on a grey shirt, liking how the cool linen fell upon his equally cold skin as he moved to the living room. It wasn't a large apartment by any means but the poorly heated place was practically home.

Four minutes later the door opened and a stream of one-sided conversation filled the apartment as Isobella stepped in. Out of the cluttered descriptions and tangential thoughts he learnt she had met four people who had seen the performance last night and one who had seen him with 'a particular looking woman' or was it 'peculiar?' for particular hardly made any sense but the woman wasn't as fluent in English as she.

Laurie's head popped up from the newspaper at the mention of a woman and he waited for Bella to elaborate. But she was emptying the few groceries she had the grace to find that morning whilst he brooded in bed, matching string sections to the rhythm of the window panes against the wall. She seemed to be smiling as she lifted the parcels into the cupboard, breaking the bread to fit in the box under the kitchen window.

Sometimes he wished she wouldn't toy with him the way he had when they first met.

"So that is why you must always buy the bread from the baker on Campo San Rocco, not the one down the street. **À mon avis, I can't see** why anyone would even consider buying down there. Still, I do not see how she saw you with a particular looking woman; I saw you with no woman." Isobella shut the cupboard door, leaning to look at his face. Laurie watched her, careful not to let a trace of interest or curiosity in the tattle of some strange woman Bella had met, and all the while desperate to know what was said. Bella leant back on the counter, folding her thin arms across her chest.

"You had no time to be with a woman." Her eyebrows arched and he saw a smile playing about her lips. She was suspicious and yet overly-confident that his attentions lay with her. Laurie smirked, taking up his newspaper again. The kitchen was silent once more save for the turn of a page and the shuffle of Bella's shoes as she shifted her weight patiently.

"Were you with a woman?"

Laurie's brow crossed. His focus on the newspaper had disappeared although he kept his eyes trained in its direction. He hadn't been with a woman the way Isobella implied; he hadn't been with a woman since she first sung for him two months ago. Her private performances had won her way into his bed and he had sworn to have only her in his home. But he had never sworn to see only her. That had made her stalk and scowl and question every move he made around her female companions until she had their promises he hadn't even looked at them since she arrived. It wasn't enough for her and he knew it. Why then couldn't he tell her she was the sole receiver of his attention? Laurie had been near a woman, he had very nearly held a woman last night and he surely had thought of nothing but that woman since. But he hadn't _been_ with her.

"No."

He had almost added _cherie_ to his white lie.

…

"Will the afternoon be booked Henry? I'd like to know."

Jo was moving across the foyer of her rented room, straightening and ordering the place as best her hands could. She knew she had worn Henry's out-of-nature patience dreadfully thin since Laurie's performance, the past two days escalating into his departure from the city for a whole day, leaving Jo to her own devices. She hadn't realised how attached to his company she'd become.

"No," the weedy-built man almost sighed. "No, this afternoon is yours to delight in."

Henry pushed the chair he sat on out from Jo's desk, pocketing the number of business letters she had asked him to mind as he stood to stand by the large window. He had little liking for water, other than the Thames and it was of great consternation to him that they should be touring through the city of canals, where the silhouette of a smoky city was periodically broken by the canyon like wells that wove their way between streets.

"We will be leaving by the end of this week. Perhaps you will make the most of this city Jo, before we head off?"

Jo stopped to look at her colleague. She knew he had no particular desire to travel when he first agreed to manage her affairs and she was sorry that it pained him to be forced into it. But Jo was sure, at least she had an inkling that just last week he had begun to enjoy some of travels' surprises and adventures. He had at least begun to greet her with an enthusiasm she had missed since London. It had been reassuring not to be thought of as a total blight to one's career and disposition.

"If you will join me?" Jo asked, knowing a speech about bravery and storming the capital would be lost on Henry.

"Not I."

They both stood awkwardly by the window, watching the ten o'clock sun break through the smog, promising adventure for Jo and work for Henry. Henry was different to any other person she had known at home and Jo liked the unknown. She liked the tension in her arms and the way her stomach would contract with the guarantee of unforeseeable circumstances. She could not reconcile their differences in humour, Jo knew but she liked to think they were at least good enough friends to enjoy the simple presence of one another.

"I'm glad that you've come back though. Thought I might have been too much of a bear these past three days, Henry. And I'm sorry for I know I've tried you so, but I'm glad you've come back."

Henry watched the way her heated cheeks tinged with colour at her earnest thoughts and he smiled back. He wished he had her talent for feeling. He wished a lot more of himself than she would understand.

"I did not intend to leave you." He turned back to the window, hoping and wishing she would read everything in his simple statement. "I do not intend to, not again."

Jo smiled, hugging her arms to herself as she moved away from the wide window. She knew he was sorry for taking off as he had, and she hoped that perhaps their friendship was growing, enough that he would begin to relax a little and enjoy himself as she was.

…

The streets were as confusing as those in London, if not more and Jo clutched her hat to her head as she looked up to squint at the sign. All the Italian names sounded unfairly similar to her and with more than three nouns and no recognisable English directions she was very ready to give up and wait for someone to find her.

Jo sighed tiredly, letting her arm fall back to her side in a huff as she began to slowly wonder along the canal again. Eventually, she thought to herself she would arrive at the sea and from there she might find her way back.

It had been a long morning to get through before she had the free time promised and it was shaping out to be an equally long afternoon as her legs began to ache from the walk. Perhaps, Jo mused to herself as she smiled at a gondolier on the other side of the widening canal, perhaps a long and aimless walk was not the best of ideas.

Still, it had been very relaxing for Jo to lose herself to the numerous streets and old buildings and she had no regrets over what the walk had done for her presence of mind. Laurie had dominated her thoughts since the performance and she cringed to remember his apathetic expression, the way the smoke curled around his face and the way his eyes insinuated so much more than he would ever voice. Jo decided she didn't know the man he had become and often she found herself wishing he'd stayed the boy with sad eyes and defiant posture, not the moody, sullen shadow of a person she had met twice.

And then there was that woman. The heroine of the performance who had kissed him in front of everyone. Jo felt the irrational burning in her chest and reflexive frown on her face at the simple thought of the woman. The reaction she had grown accustomed to feeling quite unexpectedly was quickly quashed with a faster pace in her walk and Jo returned to smiling at the picturesque weather amongst the buildings and waterways of Venice.

She didn't know what was wrong with her. Laurie and the singer should mean nothing to her. She'd made it quite clear to her friend she had wanted nothing three years ago and nothing meant that she shouldn't feel the feelings she would not feel! Jo stopped in her fast pace, seeing a middle-aged couple eye her concernedly across the street and she sighed deeply, turning to look into the canal. She wasn't sure what the burning in her chest meant when she recalled the way the girl's eyes shut when Laurie's cheek habitually turned toward her. She didn't want to know why the stunning beauty she had admired all night made her frown without warning and wish that she'd never seen her at all. They had never met, never spoken and Jo encouraged herself to think well of the woman. She could be lovely for all she knew.

Lovely.

The word sounded too much of a Henry-like thing to say that she immediately took a disliking to it. Jo had grown to care for the man who was taking care of her, but the things he said, and often the way he said things made her yearn for the niceties and comfort of home. To go a whole day without judgement or being reminded of her position in the world seemed like a very likeable idea to Jo who often wished Henry had learnt how to censure with tact. He was never intentionally cruel in his criticisms, indeed she knew he only wanted to help but it didn't take the sting out of his unmeasured remarks on her fashion or her idioms and smallness in the greatness of Europe around her.

Jo took the wide-brimmed hat off her head, letting the ribbon fall into the water beside her as she began to walk once more. The blue ends tailed behind, rippling the water as the light of the sun before her reflected into her eyes and she shut them. Jo moved lazily onwards, her eyelids feeling heavy in the warm light as she put all disagreeable thoughts out of her head.

Lovely was how Laurie's hands felt against her waist, the unbidden thought entered Jo's mind. Jo opened her eyes in surprise and found herself at the bend in the street. Her direction was long gone but the sensation from the memory tingled under the heavy fabric of the Italian dress she wore and she shivered in the responsive wish to feel it again.

She held the brim of her hat in both hands, wondering how such thoughts so unlike her came to mind. It was unsettling and she continued into the adjacent street where the canal turned, feeling a little more lost than before.

"Jo?"

Jo's head turned in surprise half expecting Meg to be there, ready with a lecture on boys and all thoughts about them only to find the very subject of her unbidden thoughts exiting a shop on the corner. Jo swallowed quickly; glad to see he was as surprised to see her as she was to see him.

"Laurie," she said his name not missing how much she sounded like Amy in that moment as she stepped to cross the street. The tall young man beat her to it and came to her side of the road, thrusting out his hand for her to shake before thinking better of it and hurriedly tucking it into his pocket. He stared down at her a moment more as she ran her thumb across the edge of her hat in an anxious movement he seemed oblivious to.

"What brings you here?" Any animosity she had grown accustomed to expecting was absent and Jo lost all knowledge in forming words for a whole twenty seconds.

"Oh! Uh… oh! I – um…" she winced at herself for stuttering before she finally gasped out that she was walking to take in the sights of the city. Laurie was strangely without the scathing wit she expected and he merely stared a while before telling her about the tear in his jacket and how he had come to get it mended.

"You have no one to do it for you?"

"No." Laurie frowned, wondering a moment if she was fishing about his situation before realising just who he was talking to. Jo had always and would always be artless. "No, that's why I – I came here." He wished he didn't sound like a nervous boy.

"Of course!" Jo laughed nervously.

"Well!"

"Well-"

Both begun at once, breaking off in an awkward silence in which Laurie half-smiled and Jo squinted across the canal. Laurie moved to stand beside her, prompting them to begin walking the way Jo had been heading.

"You've gone about this totally wrong, Jo." He sounded conversational and Jo attempted a smile in response.

"Oh?"

"Why yes! You need a guide of course."

"Of course." Jo felt a genuine smile start to break across her face at his tone and she quickly turned to look across the canal again to hide it should it break the spell he seemed to be under. "Only I know no one."

"Well…" Laurie slowed, causing Jo to stop and look back at him. He seemed to fight with himself a moment, his hands moving from inside to outside to back into his pockets within seconds before he finally finished. "You know me. I'll show you Venice, Jo."

She stared agape at the change before her. Laurie's careful words and guileless look seemed totally misplaced on the sloppily shaven face of the man she had seen glower at her only days before. Jo was sure the surprise of encountering her would wear off and he would return to his morose self but he simply stood there, hands in pockets awaiting her answer.

"Thank you."

Laurie took her arm and Jo held her hat a little tighter as the ventured away from the canal up a lane.


	8. Chapter 6

They reached the Basilica by the time Laurie realised what he was doing. He dropped Jo's arm quite suddenly taking a seat on the edge of the grand stairs, watching Jo's face as she gaped at the ominous ancient building. Jo imagined herself a Roman arriving at the public place for law or perhaps the market as the Italian voices around her flowed in melodies she had been oblivious to before she met Laurie that afternoon.

"It really is something else, Laurie." She looked quickly back at him, missing the change in his posture and the intensity in his gaze as she returned to watch the stone dome in the afternoon sun. "Imagine how magnificent it would have been in those early days of the republican empire, with the parades and celebrations of the pagans to their city gods or even the Christian reformations and think! Shakespeare's characters about us so… oh imagine what these walls might say to us now?"

Laurie watched as Jo moved about in her fancying looking more like the adolescent girl he had been captivated with than the uncomfortably fashionable writer he had grown acquainted with. Her grey eyes glazed over in delight and she walked up the steps to hold the massive columns as she peered inside. She reminded him so much of the girl who had lived inside his memories it broke his heart in half all over again. Laurie almost believed she would spin around and ask him to march ahead and reveal the Romans' secrets as they larked about, chasing down the few remaining hours of sunlight.

"Jo," he started, coughing quickly into his hand when her name came out rough and raw. "I can't show you any more."

"Oh?" Jo turned back curious. Looking into his face she finally saw the change in his features; the sunken look had returned to his eyes and his lips pressed into a hard line she would not be able to forget quickly. "Oh."

They stood facing each other silently until Jo leaned back against the column and Laurie took a step down, moving to leave.

"Oh," she said quickly. "Well I suppose this will be the last I see of you." Laurie stopped to look back with an expression of surprise he forgot to mask. He hadn't considered that she would ever leave Venice. "I'll be leaving on Saturday for Rome before I finish Italy altogether in Naples. I don't think I that I shall see Venice again."

He looked back at her. The way her brow creased and her eyes shone in the autumn light of the fleeing sun. He would never forget the way she looked against the tall white column of the Basilica as long as he breathed.

"I'm glad I saw you again, Teddy."

His eyes traced her face sadly one last time, black brows crossed in a look she wished she never saw before he walked away having never said goodbye.

…

Jo cried herself to sleep that night, knowing she would find no other time to have the cry she felt needed to be out for Venice, for moving on, for losing Laurie again. She shuddered with her sobs into the inn's linen, the pillow soaking the fat salty drops that fell sideways across her nose

He would never forgive her for breaking his heart she was sure of it and though she didn't expect him to she desperately wished he would. Jo watched the moon through her tears, mourning that she would lose Venice so soon after she had grown accustomed to its sky line and morning smog and the smiling maid that delivered letters from home. She supposed she would feel this way everywhere, she had with London and then Milan and with Venice it was the same finality.

Mostly though, Jo knew with every tear at her regretful heart that she was crying for Laurie. She cried that she would lose Laurie after only just finding him again – even the hollow shadow of a person he had become. It was better than no Laurie at all.

Jo cried for losing her best friend, before and again.

…

The rest of the week went by in an uneventful blur as Jo savoured the last few Venetian sunsets. She didn't sign as nearly as many novels as Henry would have liked and she barely smiled with that American charm she had worn without fail for that first month.

Presently he watched her through his circular reading spectacles, observing the way she read and reread a letter from one of the endlessly doting sisters she told him of. Her constant sighing and dreadfully long looks out of the grand window in the modest foyer convinced him she was homesick and the approach for their departure tomorrow morning was only stirring those feelings Henry was glad to think she had not displayed since their sail from London.

"Perhaps writing will take your mind off whatever that troubles you, Jo?"

Jo's head lifted and she smiled at him kindly, but not without pity he thought. "Thank you Henry, but there are no troubles here!" she tapped her temple in the old spirit he was used to if not still confused by. "But thank you, it's a very good idea and it's about time I make myself of some use."

Henry watched her fold the letter up, replacing it in the envelope before disappearing into her bedroom, He studied her empty seat, glad she hadn't thought him presumptuous and silently he bathed in the feeling of Jo's thanks. She had thought his opinion worthwhile and had taken his suggestion to heart.

Perhaps he had not long until she saw more within him.

…

"She's leaving tomorrow." Laurie whispered to the ceiling, his hands under his head. He ignored the feeling of Bella's smooth long legs tangled about his as she slept. Blocking out the sound of her soft breathing.

Jo was leaving him again.

He didn't know what came over him when he left the haberdashery and saw her walking past. She had looked tired but at peace and the hint of a flush in her cheeks had stirred something deep down within that he thought was long buried. She was exhausted but beautiful

He had crossed the street thinking it a dream his wicked mind had conjured, to find her there, needing his help, taking it and being thankful for it. Of course, Jo had never been one for rudeness but he had known her to be proud and when she took his arm he felt as though she had offered him water in a desert. And he had taken it just as eagerly. To find her constantly blushing under his gaze and the frown that had marred her face on previous occasions in Venice gone and he had done everything to keep it that way.

Laurie considered how he secretly thrilled to have her arm under his with an agreeable topic on his tongue and an equally pleasant smile dance across his face. He hadn't stopped admiring the colour of her skin as he talked or the way her grey eyes focused on his only to pull away with the delight of being pleased with him.

He had forgotten what it was like to please Jo.

Laurie almost smiled at the ceiling with the memory, his heart feeling a little fuller than before with the happy sensation that came from making Jo happy with him.

And then he had recalled how she had never really been happy with him, not happy enough to marry him and have him all her days. She hadn't really loved him enough at all. She told him she couldn't make him happy and that he couldn't married or no all those horrible years ago. Being lovers was beyond Jo. Her smiles and proud looks with flushed confusion hadn't meant that she loved him as the shots of warmth through his chest had told him.

Laurie frowned in his bed. Everything had come crashing back to him and she hadn't even noticed.

He didn't want to love Jo.

Laurie turned his head to look at Bella as she slept, blissfully unaware of the tormented melancholy of his thoughts. He looked at her and saw the woman she was, the lady she could be and how none of it would be helped by him. He wasn't going to marry her, they both knew that, and he couldn't make her happy but she had grabbed onto what she could have. She clutched it as the renewal of nail marks along his shoulder blades reminded him in the dirty bathroom mirror every morning.

Maybe he needed to do the same.

Laurie draped a lazy arm across her figure, running his hand down her bare spine. Her legs shifted against his and her dark head turned so that she faced him, yawning in her woken arousal.

"Laurie?" she sighed lifting a sleepy hand to cup his face, warming his cheek instantly in a way he hadn't known with her before. It wasn't often she could surprise him but when she did it managed to bring a smile to his face, something so often lacking.

"We're leaving tomorrow," he whispered before leaning across Bella's pillow to kiss her deeply.


	9. Chapter 7

Jo closed her eyes, feeling the cool glass against her cheek as the movement of the train rocked her to sleep. It was shaping up to be a long day, sitting and staring out the window at the passing northern Italian climate as they headed towards Bologna, aiming to arrive in Florence before nightfall. Jo thought it would never end. The clanking of the wheels against the rails, the slight nausea of motion sickness, the crumple and swish of Henry's newspaper. It was exhausting having to sit still for so long and for a journey she wasn't sure she wanted to make.

When the sun had crept through her bedroom window that morning Jo had groaned. She had barely slept ten winks before the night had come to a close and in her tired, emotional frame of mind she had wanted to cry a good hour before getting up. Unfortunately the maid had entered and pulled back her sheets, placing a cold clammy hand on her wrist to wrench her from her warm if useless bed.

It had been a trial leaving Venice. The books she thought she'd organised two days before lay across her desk by the foyer window, she hadn't left out comfortable clothes for travel and it had put her sleepless mind into a mood Henry's light business talk only irritated. She had sighed and rubbed her eyes at least four dozen times before they even boarded the train.

Jo opened her eyes, the sun shone on the other side of the plate and she yearned to be amongst the dramatic hills, to roll about in the warmth of the suns rays. "Anywhere other than here," Jo thought gloomily, turning her head against the window to watch Henry. For someone who proclaimed to hate travelling he certainly had a knack for withstanding it. He had made two newspapers last three quarters of the trip to Bologna and she smiled at the thought that he must have read the women's section to make it last so.

Henry was never one for outright discrimination but Jo had noted the tightness in his jaw when his editor assigned him to her management. She knew he thought the task beneath him and it had bristled her. So Jo had taken it upon herself to prove him wrong – that her career was worth it and that she could look after herself. She constantly held her tongue to avoid a quarrel and was excessively pleased with her control. Jo's temper was never lightly tamed and as she found it pushed and prodded by his initial attitude, her hard work in reining it in had payed off remarkably. She was sure they were fast becoming friends.

Presently Jo grinned at his absorbed expression before looking out the window again. Knowing the progress she made in watching her temper, and becoming friends with the uppity Englishman sent a warm feeling of content across her chest and she relished the calm. It wouldn't be long, she thought as the train continued south, they would soon consider each other life-long friends, even after the tour ended. Jo refocused on the landscape before her as she shifted on the padded seat. She wanted to memorise every hill, every rock escarpment and every jolt of the train's journey as they moved through Italy together.

…

Jo sighed gloomily at the city before her. Henry and she had arrived in Bologna to the soft fall of rain with dark skies and foul-mooded Italians. She crossed her hands, afraid she'd stuff them in her pockets and mortify her manager who stood arguing with the inn keeper somewhere to her right.

The rain continued and Jo watched the grim-mouthed people cross back and forth the street, keeping their eyes to the slippery paved ground. She wondered how many of them were going home from work and how many of the others had errands to run before they met their warm fires and loved ones for supper. Thinking of the last meal of the day Jo's stomach grumbled audibly and she turned to see if Henry had settled their booking for the night.

"Well, there's no end for this dreadful day!" Henry bent to take her suitcase and from his rough manner Jo guessed it hadn't gone well.

"Aren't there any rooms?"

"Oh, well I didn't say that," he brushed past her heading up the stairs leaving her to follow him puzzled. Jo looked towards the innkeeper before she took the stairs and saw that the bearded man was quietly smiling to himself. She hadn't any idea what was going on.

"You won't be happy." Henry called to her, already at the top of the modest climb. "And you can see I'm plainly not." He directed her to the door on the left once she caught up. Peering in Jo saw a large bed curtained with lace under the sealed window. She looked in further to find the only other piece of furniture in the room was a worn-out chair beside a cramped desk in the corner closest to the door.

"Where's the other bed?" She asked leaning back into the corridor to find Henry frowning at his boots. He looked even more irritated as he switched her bag from one hand to the other before pushing past her into the small room.

"We'll just have to make do," Henry's voice sounded muffled but stern as he began to unpack from the other side of the bed. Before she could say anything else Henry moved back into the corridor, bringing the rest of their belongings in. She watched as he marched between the rooms, a storm playing across his face that matched the weather outside in the darkening sky.

"Henry," Jo addressed him when it seemed he had run out of luggage to move into the cramped space. The thin man paused, his body stiffening before he met her gaze. "Why is there only one bed? There's only one, when there's clearly two of us."

Henry's fist moved through his curly hair before he put them behind his back, launching into a short-fused explanation. "There was only one room left for us. I tried, Miss March, I tried darn hard to relate all the facts, who we are, why this room was unsuitable. But there was only this! This one room! And I'm tired and you're hungry and it's wet outside and I don't know how but we'll have to adjust!" With that he bowed shortly and headed for the door. "I'm going downstairs. I'll bring you some tea."

Jo nodded quickly but he had shut the door and could be heard stomping down the narrow stairs before she had time to say anything. Jo sat on the edge of the bed unsure what to do. She could continue writing but Henry's foul mood was really all she could think of.

She had been wrong about Henry's handling the travelling. He hadn't said anything directly but his uncharacteristic short fuse told Jo everything. In fact he reminded her of her Laurie when the boy hadn't gotten his own way over spending an afternoon with the girls and had study to do instead. Laurie of course would have wheedled and charmed his way into achieving his desire, Henry though simply fumed in that silent and awkward way of his until they had to move on. It was distressing to see Henry so, but Jo was certain it couldn't be helped and as it was only temporary, she hoped, Jo resigned herself to holding her tongue at his manner lest he direct any of it towards her and she spit back.

Jo rose, moving to get some sewing for Beth's dolls out, unable to help but think if it had been Laurie she would have said something. She would have said a great deal.

…

Laurie couldn't stop staring at the hand that clutched his. The train shook as it hit a newer part of the rail too fast and his gaze broke momentarily when the hand squeezed his a little tighter. Laurie looked up to see the pale countenance of Bella as she fixed her look onto the seat in front of them, her pressed lips lacking the vibrant colour she often painted them. He looked down again to see her free hand rubbing her stomach through the thin shawl and linen dress she wore for travel.

He hadn't realised Isobella was so susceptible to motion sickness. Really though, he hadn't realised he cared. Laurie squeezed her hand back before propping his chin up by the window to survey the passing Italian countryside. He couldn't have gotten out of Venice fast enough it seemed.

In truth he wasn't even all that sure of what he was doing. He couldn't decide whether it was to follow Jo – Jo who he thought about all night and compared her to Bella all day – or whether it was to reclaim the pieces of his old life.

Laurie shifted until his palm cupped his chin more comfortably. The stubble he never seemed to care to shave scratched his hand and his eyes narrowed at the landscape. Laurie had once been respected. For more than his money and music and more than a flirt. His thoughts turned to his grandfather whom he hadn't seen in months and the guilt that flooded him almost made him choke. He could he be respectable when he'd driven the old man who loved him away?

Laurie had driven everyone who loved him away.

He felt another squeeze on his left and he turned to find Bella leaning back in her seat, smiling at him gently despite her evident nausea.

"Well," Laurie thought with resignation or relief he couldn't tell, "perhaps not everyone."

…

The smell was awful.

Jo frowned at the plate of burnt meat and undercooked vegetables before turning her expression on Henry who sat on the other side of the bed looking very out of place. As if it wasn't enough they had to share a room, the meal Henry had meekly returned with was less than standard. Jo herself could have cooked it for the state it was in.

"Uh… it's certainly…" Jo struggled for something nice to say but she had run out of pleasantries to be given on such a day. "Thank you for going to the trouble to find it, Henry."

The curly-haired man nodded quickly as he turned around to face his own equally unattractive meal. He looked at his supper feeling perfectly miserable. Nothing had gone right for him that day, in fact it was a miracle they'd even made the train. Still, not one thing was going to let Henry fall a day behind in his schedule. They had made good time today, even if nothing had gone particularly well and they would continue on time to Rome tomorrow. With that uplifting thought, Henry tucked into his spoiled meal, chewing with steady determination.

Jo however, barely touched the meat and ate only half the vegetables (she tried the first) before she pushed the plate away. How they were going to sleep she had no idea, for even though they were friends, it just wasn't proper. Jo stared out at the night wondering why providence had put her in this position. Certainly a few hours ago she was congratulating herself on how well they got along despite their differences and how she and Henry were even friends, but that definitely didn't constitute the requirements for sharing a room.

Jo prayed that Henry would take forever to finish the awful meal and that the awkward conversation that was inevitable coming could be put off as long as possible.

She wondered as she followed the trailing path of a particularly fat raindrop make its way down the window if it had been Laurie would she have been just as worried?

…

Jo squinted across the dark room trying to make out the figure of her tour manager. She reckoned it to be about three in the morning but still she couldn't sleep and Jo had instead resigned herself to staring guiltily at her sleeping friend from the comfort of the bed.

It had been lovely, thoughtful, kind and appropriate for Henry to insist the bed was hers earlier, after supper. But it had felt wrong. Still, Jo knew what was to be expected and she couldn't bring herself to say no, tired as she was. Henry had proclaimed the chair fine and the bed too small to be comfortable for his frame and she hadn't argued.

Jo frowned watching his chest rise and fall, head thrown back and neck exposed as he slept on.

…

"It's too early for this," Jo complained as she hauled the last of their suitcases onto the trolley a very stoic-faced Italian then wheeled away. She patted the back of her hair which sat bunned up on the back of her neck, speculating whether anyone would consider her presentable at all today. Meg would be so ashamed.

Henry's moustache twitched and he took her hand, leading Jo to the carriage before unnecessarily helping her onboard. She watched unnoticed as he closed the door tightly behind them, taking his seat with a sigh that said more about what he expected the day ahead to be than anything he might tell her.

Quietly she mused on how much longer she had to be in Europe.

…

"Mon chou," Laurie turned away at the endearment, rubbing his face in his hands tiredly. Being compared to a vegetable he had always despised was hardly attractive. He wondered how much longer the train ride would be. "Do you have the paper?"

Laurie shoved the article into his partner's lap, leaning his head against the hard seat, wishing the elderly couple that sat across from them would stop looking at him. It had been three hours. Three hours of grey heads sharing secret looks, reading signs he really wish they wouldn't and three hours in which the stuffy air that filled the compartment contained more discomfort than he thought possible.

"You like sports?" Isobella wrinkled her nose, unable to find the women's section. Her tall companion thought of a time he had learnt scores and avidly followed college teams and rugging up with his best friend to enjoy a good laugh on the field once he tore her away from books. Yes, he did. Before scorns and a different kind of scores.

"Mm," he answered, turning his body to the window further.

"Well, it's all you've bought." She raised a perfectly shaped brow when Laurie didn't respond, her gaze flickering to the couple across from them. The old man was absorbed in his own paper, absentmindedly caressing the hand of his wife who seemed content to look out the window as the train gently rocked them all back and forth as they raced across the Italia-Franco border.

Turning back to Laurie beside her, Isobella knew he was in one of his moods. She had affairs with more different people but none so handsome or musically inclined and oh! How she adored his music. Isobella folded the newspaper, placing her hands atop it in her lap as she examined the compartment door, a faint flush staining her cheeks.

Silently she recalled the few precious moments she had caught Laurie playing the piano. They were sacred to her. He hadn't known she was watching him and Isobella had her first real view of who the American boy truly was. She remembered frowning at that thought, for every moment up to then he had always been Italian in her mind. Someone familiar, someone she _knew_. But it was clear from the way his eyes crinkled in the corners, not young and smooth as befitting his age, the expression of his forehead the experience behind his nimble fingers as they danced along the keys without pause that she did not know the man she was spying on. He might have looked as Italian as she but the memory that ran across his face had nought to do with the country of their birth and everything to do with that far away place that had shaped his accent and frank mannerisms. The things she didn't understand. His real life, she thought sadly.

Presently Isobella leaned against the back of the chair, her eyes unfocused on the passengers that passed their compartment. The look on his face had caught her, branded affection she had never felt before across her heart. But then he had always taken her breath away. Looking down at her lap she followed the folded pattern her forest green coat made as it draped gracefully along her crossed legs. She didn't know exactly why but every time she wore the jacket she caught Laurie staring, a pinched look before he smothered it with an indifferent comment about her choice of hair bows and pins. She liked to believe he was watching her almost with that expression he had worn playing the piano. The very one he had when playing thanksgiving tunes he thought she'd never heard in the back of their theatre.

Deep down inside, when she watched him out of the corner of her 'perfectly lovely' eyes she had to wonder whether it was all a lie.

A few hours later Laurie stretched lazily. The sat on a cold red-painted bench at one of many train stations as the train broke mid-journey. He yawned, ignoring the feel of the tall thin lady's head on his shoulder, the feel of her skull hard against the thin bone of his collar. The first half of their trip was setting the precursor for the rest; dull, boring and impossibly long for someone as restless as he.

Bella shifted, tucking an arm around Laurie's middle and he settled his own complaining body, hesitating before draping his arm lightly around her.

He hadn't been able to put Jo's face out of his mind. Even as he shared a tired embrace from the woman who shared more than just his living quarters he thought about Jo. It was worrying, the intensity with which she returned to his mind. His every waking thought. Certainly, he'd never been fully capable of putting her out entirely, but Jo was back, in full colour and expression which time had thankfully eroded. And her face was always with that look Laurie knew she had worn as he walked away from the Basilica.

"What are you thinking of, mon chou?" Isobella's tired voice drifted up to his equally tired ears. Instantly a shot of guilt ran through his limbs and he withdrew his arm as if she was the Devil himself.

"Nothing, Mademoiselle," he said swiftly, using the same voice he had teased her with so early in Delhi. Smoothly Isobella pulled herself up to look at him and he saw in her appraisal what he feared. A knowing that she had always belied in favour of sweet smiles and easy romance that had him believing she was as innocent as her voice. Quickly he caught up her hand and gave and empty grin, indicating that they should re-board. "Nothing but how I shall miss Italian sunsets in favour of others with your charming tongue," he tipped her small chin upwards with practiced ease before kissing her with a reassurance he had no idea of possessing.

Without further question Bella followed him back to the train, frowning when she saw him look away and brush the side of his mouth with his gloved hand.

**A/N**: I am SO sorry I've been neglecting this story. A great deal of this was written a few months ago, but uni caught me up (yay English exam tomorrow *frowns*) and yeah, I've been pretty slack with this fandom. Still with all the period dramas I've had to read for this bloody course I figured I should keep a going and I hope this is enough to make up for all the time I haven't spent fixing this. Yeah, this one's long and boring but I hope you got that was the feeling of everyone involved in relocating to Rome and France.

Also soz, I've never left Australia so I'm relying on google maps and wiki to get me through the places in this story. Sorry if they're rather inaccurately described but lets all pretend it was like this back in the nineteenth century…


	10. Chapter 8

_A/N:_ lul I couldn't even remember what my own OC's looked like it's been that long. Thank you – and I mean THANK YOU to everyone who has stuck by reading this for (almost) two years and everyone who's clicked on for a looksie. Your reviews have been well worth it and have brought a smile to my other-wise drawn face (I need a job or more unemployed friends). I really mean it, thanks. Also, if I don't make it 'm' now I'll have to later. Just warning you.

Laurie stared at the empty space beside him. The sheets lay tangled at the base of the bed, some covering his feet, the rest waiting to be pulled up by absentminded lady-like hands. The room still smelt strongly of perfume and he had to close his eyes to stop the feeling of loneliness that threatened to drown him.

It was only at this point of consciousness, in this time where his lids felt heavier than his limbs that Laurie permitted himself to imagine a life without mistakes. Where the space beside him was waiting to be filled by an American, not the Italian woman who was singing softly in the bath next door. Certainly, he dwelt and obsessed over Jo in brighter moments of wake but in the moment before sleep took hold he found himself desperately alone and his imagination frantically wild. It was here that Laurie's compositions were born and verses of grey eyes dominated the space left in the white sheets warm from the French afternoon sun.

His eyes began their slow roll back under red lids and he imagined that it was Jo whose sweet voice reached his ears. Laurie imagined she had said yes and that they had travelled Europe and he had never met anyone with blue eyes and a French accent and that his bed belonged to them both. He imagined that the footsteps approaching the bed were clumsy, eager to climb into that empty space and fill it with warmth and well-known love, the only love he had ever wanted. God how he wanted.

She'd whisper 'Teddy' and her long arms would fall about him, pressing the shape of her beloved body to his and they would _fit_. And he would be falling asleep in the scent of books and ink not lace and sugar, she would be Jo and he would be himself.

Himself, he thought drifting into a colourful sleep that did not involve the woman he clutched.

…

Laurie woke to the sound of pigeons scratching at the window. Blinking he scrubbed his face with his numb hands, sparing a second to look at the space beside him. Isobella was not lying expectantly beside him and from the state of the room she had left eagerly that morning for an audition. Laurie smelt roses and he knew she had been nervous for she only saved that particular perfume for an event to impress. Groaning he swung his long legs out of bed and lumbered out of the room into the still-unfamiliar living room and kitchen in one.

On surveying the cramped room Laurie discovered the pitcher of milk he had bought yesterday and quickly downed the remains. He wondered over to the sofa, a new affair with even more tears than his previous couch the colour he loved and quickly picked up the newspaper. He scanned the pages, forcing his eyes to follow word by word. He had to keep busy, had to keep occupied or else last night's dream would creep back and he would be on his back moaning not in pain but in release with a head of chestnut hair he knew better than his own kissing him in ways he'd never known.

Laurie cringed, dropping the paper in defeat. It wasn't any use. His dreams had taken a dramatic turn and they were heading down a road he knew led to his self-destruction for they contained events that would never, never in a never-in-a-million-years never happen. Jo had become the star of every thought, no longer just waking and Laurie knew where this lead. The events in Venice were hardly favourable and yet her presence had returned and Laurie found himself thinking of her in ways he hadn't for years.

He looked around the room; seeing the single window shut tight he ventured over to open it. Only too late did Laurie remember why Bella had kept all the windows closed as a wave of Parisian air hit his nostrils. Recoiling from the smell Laurie slammed the window shut, ignoring the shuddering of the pane against the sill as he turned back to the 'new' blue sofa.

He wouldn't let his life fall apart. Not again.

Looking for something to keep him busy, Laurie spotted the plain black board that held his manuscripts. He shuffled into the kitchen and pulled it off the table, feeling a little silly when a wave of nostalgia hit him at first sight of a crotchet. It was like climbing onto a buoy and clutching for dear life having been lost at sea for days. Laurie permitted a half-smile at the folder of sheets in his hands and he leaned against the table-top thinking he'd found his saviour a second time.

He knew how to stop himself from drowning and he was going to make good of it this time. If he should continue to earn money from such a living then it would be no loss and if he should only be stuck with Bella and her bell-voice and this small Parisian hovel he was by necessity to call 'home' then he should survive. The legacy of his mother would ride him through this resurfacing pain that took form as the ghost of Jo.

…

Jo turned away from the smartly dressed figure Henry presented and settled her eyes on the view that was Rome. She smiled under the sun, the warmth running through her limbs in the face of such grand architecture, even in ruin. Jo thought of Amy and the small sketches of hers Jo kept tucked away in a folder that held more than one precious memory in a bag that never really unpacked wherever she went. Instantly recognisable was the Forum and Jo grinned to see the many winding roads, narrow with stalls and busy Romans who walked by ignorant of the unique 'scape that was their home.

"Come along, we can't keep Mrs Rossini waiting all morning, Jo."

With the feel of a gloved hand on her elbow Jo faced her manager again and felt the smile die on her lips. "Of course, sorry." It was so easy to forget what fortune had brought her to such spectacular places until Henry, the voice of reason and reliance stepped in and reminded her sharply of her duties and appointments.

Still, it was difficult to dislike him for it when he would quite suddenly turn to her and smile. His eyes would turn the loveliest shade of green in their hazel depths and the surprise of it all made her thankful she had someone so sensible and caring to watch over her.

Presently Henry merely bustled her onwards into the crowd away from the lookout. His harried expression had become more and more the norm since their delay in Bologna and Jo could hardly blame the poor man. They were now two to three weeks behind according to his pocket-book schedule and she hardly had time to see anything or anyone in Florence let alone Rome. Often she would drift to sleep with a crossed brow thinking of her youngest sister's pictures and missed opportunities, particularly one that starred an almost-unshaven version of her old neighbour.

Having been pushed onto a trolley Jo thought of her pen. It most likely lay unused once more on top of her tartan-covered board folder that held the scraps of scribbling she'd managed to piece together along the tour. She thought of the few letters it likely held too and a lump of guilt formed in her throat for having not sent them. But the few lines she knew they contained of Laurie could never be read by home. The disappointment in his conduct and the altered state of his appearance she first felt when meeting him leaped out of the page and Jo cringed at the mere thought of her mother reading such lines.

As the trolley jostled her against the large Italian on her left Jo couldn't help but feel boxed in. Not only was she three weeks behind on tour, she was a month behind on letters. Heavens, she missed her family!

…

"I'd like to have a moment to myself, thank you Henry," Jo knew she slammed the door behind her but she was beyond caring. Having kept Mrs Rossini fifteen minutes late Jo walked in with an apology on her lips only to receive the most scathing review of her novel yet. Elbert James, a man who spent his time reading and keeping company with the English gentlemen of Rome, it seemed had been invited in order to hear the reading and instead provided his own blunt opinion that 'Miss March was hardly worth her fancifulness as evident in her inability to be punctual, her absentminded grammar and inattention to plot'. Jo had turned a beet red and spat equally judgemental things about Mr James' manner and use in the present society before marching out in burning temper.

It had only been when she turned for Henry's hand into the carriage that she saw her shameful behaviour marked in his own red face and hard eyes. But it was too late for apologies and Jo knew she had lost the majority of Italian favour within those two minutes of shouted words. She silently wondered as Henry passed the money to the driver whether her friendship with the Englishman – all traces of it thoroughly erased from his face and posture – was totally unsalvageable. And to Jo, her partner's friendship far outweighed the consequences of Italian sales and popular review.

The ride back to the hotel was painfully silent and Jo spent it worrying her new aubergine gloves. When the ride stopped she frowned at the over-stretched state of them and quickly pocketed them, thinking her gloves an ugly colour anyway. Purple had never suited Jo and wearing it in another country hardly proved it would.

Clambering out of the carriage unaided she waltzed into the beautiful yellow building without pause, determined not to look as foolish as she felt in front of Henry. Henry for his part kept as silent as she with a surprisingly unreadable expression on his face as he waved off the driver and handed what small articles he carried to the maid.

Now, Jo sat in the room she called 'hers' for the next three weeks feeling entirely remorseful. She'd embarrassed herself clearly, but Jo was no stranger to that feeling, her tongue and temper having landed her in bad form for company too many times to count. It was that she had embarrassed Henry too – Henry who had done so much for her, done so much to get her where she was. She had no real understanding of how much she relied upon him until his face turned stony as he helped her into the carriage. How much she had come to think of him as a close friend.

She wouldn't let her temper ruin this friendship.

Jo stood up suddenly and headed into the common room where Henry sat staring before papers. Slowing only when her nerves began to show, Jo waited beside the Englishman until she was noted.

"Henry, I'm desperately sorry." Jo paused unsure what to say next. He was watching her with such unsure eyes that she had no knowledge of her own confidence either and Jo found herself struggling to piece an apology properly together in her head. She cursed herself for not thinking this through. "You know my temper, and I'm sorry it got the best of me, I've tried so hard not to let it emerge but – well, I'm still very sorry Henry."

She stood there, hands twitching as she awaited his reply. Still Henry watched her with that unfamiliar look and Jo swallowed to ease the tightness in her throat and stomach. If he could only know how sorry she truly was! 'Oh,' Jo thought, 'I've really put my foot in it this time, and now I'll never know if we should be real friends.'

"Thank you." He said after a minute more of silence and pleading stares on Jo's part. Jo watched as he turned back to the papers without so much as a sniff or parting word. Effectively he propped his arm onto the table between them, leaning into the paperwork to signal the end of the conversation. Jo stood but for a minute in confusion before going back to her room and closing the door.

She had lost another friend.


	11. Chapter 9

Jo hesitated only for a second before releasing the letter in her hand. It slipped between the rectangular hole without so much as a whisper and she turned away from the box without looking back.

The streets were busy in the morning and Jo was careful not to step in front of any carriages or market carts as she made her way across. 'All roads lead to Rome,' she thought wryly to herself wondering just where they would lead for her. Gripping her purse tighter she thought of the company waiting for her in the inn. It had been a miserable two weeks of awkward silences and Jo found herself imagining home when she found Henry imagining her gone altogether. He wouldn't even cast so much as a look in her direction and as he withdrew further from more than just the common room Jo's homesickness grew.

So she had written to Amy.

Jo sidestepped as a group of gypsies sauntered their way to the food stalls on her right, the crates of fruit propped up against the tall buildings shaded from the sun. She thought of her adventure novel as the youngest boy of the pack laughed gaily, running between his older friends and tugging at their rags. He was so carefree in such an obvious circumstance of misfortune – his poverty and missed opportunities marking the rest of his life even at so young an age – and Jo desperately wished she had such a spirit still lurking deep within but it had been snuffed out with the demands of a contract in her unexpected success in New York. Long gone was the girl who wanted nothing more than to fight alongside her father and be the model Christian whose humility would withstand any change in circumstance for her family and country. In her place was a woman who had written one 'quite good' novel and had seen a great deal of countries she'd dreamt of and had learnt the weight of money and success and the pressures of independence. She had learnt to be tired.

Sighing as she crossed the final street to the library Jo lamented as she passed that she'd never learnt Italian. Worse, she was sure Amy, little Amy who she herself had to teach, had learnt more of the language than Jo could ever hope. 'Just one more thing', a voice she hardly ever acknowledged whispered in her head, 'just one more thing to bring her closer to Laurie' but Jo stamped down the hidden jealousy she felt ashamed of and she hurried past the disappointing building to return to an even less appealing 'home'.

Jo slowed as she approached the inn. Her skirts were more than filthy from the dusty streets and her legs ached from such a walk but Jo had to admit, she felt better than being cooped up in her room mourning the loss of friends and the distance between Rome and family.

"Ciao! Amico!"

Jo looked up to find the gardener leaning on his shovel. She grinned giving a small wave for the fellow had always greeted her with a smile she might've compared to the Tuscan sun in a novel. The young man presently winked back at her in a saucy manner that reminded her entirely of another person before holding the gate open for her.

"Come stai?" he asked, taking his hat off with more manners than his overly friendly way. Jo shrugged, still smiling to show she didn't understand. It was moments like these she wished she'd asked Henry to teach her something of the language but then he barely spoke even English to her anymore.

"Oh," he grinned again and Jo felt her heart strangely skip a beat. "Uh, howa are you?"

Jo laughed for the gardener had rolled his 'r's and she offered her hand to shake. The dark-haired man took it eagerly and shook vigorously, his face still split in that blinding grin. "Very well thank you!" Jo said, her arm sore from such a shake.

He clutched his hat tightly in brown hands that shut the gate tightly behind her. Jo knew those hands were tough from outdoors work having shook them minutes ago and she admitted she liked the difference. The Italian gardener with the sunny smile, she mused as he took her arm and led her to the tall house minding the broad span of her skirts.

"Thank you!" Jo said, finding herself blushing lightly as he gave a funny little bow, tipping his hat back onto his head in one sweep.

"Grazie!" he replied, motioning for her to repeat as he leaned against the wall on one arm, the other fisted on his waist. Jo looked at his casual stance and had to smile, repeating quietly, "Grazie."

"Ah!" the gardener clapped. "Grazie!" he smiled and laughed, tipping his cap one last time before heading back to his shovel by the gate. Jo watched him go, feeling as though something had changed in the winds of fortune for her and when he turned around to wave at her Jo waved back.

…

Jo sat by her window, looking out the panes into the beautiful garden as the morning sun filtered through the olive tree just outside. Through its branches she watched as the gardener chased one of the guest's pups across the garden, playing more with the dog than catching it. She laughed as the little West Highland terrier ducked under a wheel barrow and the boy tripped beside it. The puppy quickly went for his flat cap which had fallen off and there was a struggle for the article under the Italian pines by the shed.

Her laughter at the sight quickly caught the attention of the young fellow and he jumped to his feet, reclaiming his hat in one quick move. Soon he was approaching her window and Jo felt a sudden heat cover her cheeks as she wondered what she would say.

"Buongiorno!" he mouthed and Jo unlatched the window. "Oh, good morning!" She called out a little more nervous than her usual as she leaned out the window. The Italian grinned brightly at her and Jo had to remember how to swallow in the face of such startling brilliance. She didn't know how she would ever think of smiling without picturing the gardener's face just so again.

"Howa are you?" he grinned at what had become a private joke between them in the past three days. "Come stai?" Jo replied to complete the routine and the young man laughed airily as was his manner. Jo couldn't help but smile around the boy-like man she'd come to know as Nino and she found herself desperate to spend more and more time with him. Nino had lifted the blanket off the cage that was her time in Rome.

"Molto bene!" he laughed again, coming to stand between the hedges under her window to grip the sill. "Molto bene," Jo rolled the words around in her mouth. She giggled despite herself looking down at the proud boy who reminded her all too often of days and adventures past between another hedge in another country with another boy. Suddenly his face was too close and Jo stepped back in immediate reaction, her hands jumping into nervous wringing. Nino simply rested his elbows across the ledge and leaned into her room.

"Ah! So this isa what it looks like!"

Jo looked about the room, glad Nino had ignored her queerness. "Yes, this is my fortress."

"Fortress," Nino smiled at the word, repeating it a few times under his breath. Jo had to admire his eagerness to bridge the language gap between them. "You are alone, yes?"

Jo nodded thinking he meant the room was empty and there was no one but her to see him practice his English as he had taken to doing with her. A second later Jo found herself watching the gardener haul himself through the window and into her bedroom. A hand ran through his pomade-slick hair before it was wiped habitually on his oil rag as he looked about the room again.

"Fortress?" he asked finally turning to an uncomfortable-looking Jo.

"Uh…" Jo tried to describe the word physically, squeezing her fisted arms up against her side, bent at the elbow to show herself boxed in. "Stronghold, uh a safe height, oh no that's not it, oh how will I - oh! Bastion!"

"Bastione! Fortezza!" Nino put two and two together smiling with his hands on his hips.

"Si! Si!" Jo laughed at his proud expression, a look she had become quickly acquainted with on his sun-browned face.

"You are _solo_," he said suddenly serious as he approached Jo. He gave a sympathetic squeeze to her shoulder, sitting on the edge of her bed. In the few days Jo had grown to know Nino better she had found a soul equally lonely as hers. He told her of his sister with eyes that looked just so at her now and it made her heart ache a little for three other girls.

"Si," she answered quietly, falling beside him.

"Hey, it'sa not so bad!" Nino patted her knee, looking out the window, gesturing to the garden he tended every day of his life. "Beautiful! _Bello_," he added as a side for Jo, "and there isa me." Nino's hand rested on his chest and Jo couldn't help the tug of her lips into a grin. Nino was born to smile and make others smile it seemed.

"Bello," Jo grinned and Nino laughed.

She thought that maybe Rome wasn't so bad.

…

Paris wasn't great but it wasn't terrible. Laurie smirked at the women he passed on the street. Their tight skirts and tighter waists sashayed in time and he never tired of the whispered sound against the noise of carts and Balmorals, the tapping of umbrella ends and the barking of dogs that haunted his every step. It helped to drown out the sound of his thoughts.

And yet Laurie found himself inevitably searching for a painfully familiar face on every lady he passed. For the wide green skirts he loved. More importantly one particular woman that wore them.

His heart squeezing tighter he turned the corner and almost ran into someone. Catching them before they fell, Laurie righted himself only to come face-to-face with another girl he'd known to wear those same green skirts in hand-me-downs.

"Good God! Amy! Amy Curtis March well if I haven't died and gone straight to heaven!"

The blonde-haired lady blinked furiously three times before throwing her arms about the tall fellow. "Theodore Laurence! Well if I haven't landed in Providence's arms! Oh you silly boy whatever are you doing here?" Amy pulled back to look up into familiar black eyes that seemed all too bright in the Parisian morning.

"I should ask you the very same thing if I hadn't already heard you were in France!"

"Well?" Amy pushed, impatient as ever to have the handle on the situation.

"It was time I saw what Paris had to offer," he answered more elusively than Amy would have liked. "You, I believe, are here to paint? Well of course you must," Laurie took her hand, tucking it enthusiastically in the crook of his arm and continued to stroll. "Where else would one go to paint?"

"Europe has a great deal of other cities of painters, Laurie." She rolled her eyes fondly, unaware of Laurie's misstep at the action. "Florence for one. And Rome! Oh Rome, it was magnificent for even more than just painting."

"And Fred, I hear he is… about?" Laurie swiftly changed the topic.

"Oh." Amy seemed stumped on how to reply when she saw her old neighbour's expression and found it entirely unknown to her. "If you mean that he is travelling with Aunt March and myself, then yes. I believe he is."

Laurie frowned at her tone but continued their pace; quizzing the girl about her favourite sights in Paris and the ones she had yet to see. Only Amy's expectations for the great city were spoken of and when Laurie came to his destination she had gleaned nothing of his own opinions or thoughts. Nor why exactly he was here.

"Here we must part for a time," Laurie tipped his tall black hat her way and Amy smiled politely, covering a feeling of queerness at the figure before her. His mouth twitched his 'au revoir' and Amy was left feeling as though she had 'caught up' with a complete stranger.

Laurie strode into the office, ignoring the sound of bells behind him as the door swung shut. Amy was precisely where Jo had said. Was it fortune or torture that had brought him face to face with the youngest March sister? Laurie wondered as he moved to ask the assistant for any mail. The slim girl replied a negative and he stood frowning heavily at the counter in the Post Office with too short a ceiling before disappearing faster than he had bustled in. She shook her head at the fellow's dark look knowing a broken heart ready to break others when she saw it.

A/N: I tried to avoid the angst this time guys, but unfortunately with this story it seems impossible. Molto bene and pomade are references to Doctor Who and Hamish Macbeth respectively. I'm sorry if there's anything wrong with the Italian in this – blame the net coz I know nothing just like French. Why didn't I set this in Germany!


	12. Chapter 10

WARNING: this chapter is 'M' rated. Smut ahead.

Henry shut his book, sparing a glance to the single window of his room. Outside the day was coming to a similar close, the deep reds, pinks and purples of sunset coloured the manicured garden and the creatures that dwelt in it. If he looked hard enough he could see Jo.

Henry stood with his book and walked with his usual deliberate pace to the bed. Sitting on the overly-plain covers he dropped the book to the bed-side table unable to hold back a sigh. It had been the longest two weeks of his life. Rubbing the heels of his hands into his tired eyes he collapsed back onto the spring mattress, the movement sending him bouncing. Henry curled onto his side and imagined he'd never left London or the cushy job that kept him stable, well-noted and above all sane.

Jo was too unpredictable. She ran hot and cold and she was impossible to make see reason. Never had he met such a woman who could not hold her proper standing in public. And by God she was fascinating.

Henry immediately berated himself for such thoughts, a circumstance all too unfortunately familiar to him. Jo had dictated the turning course of his life, becoming a tour guide and manager all in one and she dictated him now a failed one. But oh no, it didn't stop there, she had also to dictate his thoughts.

Casting an arm over his face Henry considered the dramatics his life had taken since meeting Jo. When Forster had thrown the door open and gestured to him to shake the young American lady's hand he had almost laughed. She stood without a spot of make-up on her features and a plain brown dress that clung to her slim form without really fitting it. From the moment he took her ink-stained hand in that mahogany smoke-filled office his life had become entwined with hers and his he had been uprooted.

"OOHH! Not near the house!!"

Henry's arm lifted at the sound of Jo's voice shouting outside.

"That's it, there's you're arm!"

He could only imagine what she meant and without realising it Henry had sat up to look out the window. There Jo was amidst the hedges, her dress tied up showing more of her petticoat than Henry had ever even thought of on any woman. She held a ball in one arm but it was her other hand Henry was unable to look away from. Jo was gripping a stranger's bicep, grinning madly as the darker fellow flexed. The fact that her hand had slipped under the man's rolled up sleeve did not escape Henry's attention nor did the sudden wish that it was he who stood with Jo.

Jo laughed when the boy wrestled the ball from her, watching her over his shoulder as he ran off. "Hey!" She called, grabbing his sleeve before he got far and Henry found his eyes narrowing. "Nino, are you sure this is okay?" Henry saw her eyes dart to her skirt. "I mean, the guests won't see us will they? It's not too improper? Oh Meg would have my head!"

"No, _bello_," The apparently Italian boy grinned disarmingly and Henry immediately caught Jo's blush. He watched as the boy took Jo's hand and led her back to the open ground whispering or at least talking softly enough that Henry missed the rest of their conversation.

The Englishman sunk back onto the bed. The boy had called her 'beautiful' and Jo hadn't outright decked him for his manners. Henry folded his hands over his stomach and stared at the ceiling. It wasn't as though he should continue entertaining ideas of a romantic relationship with the girl when he couldn't even keep her friendship. She was just _too_ different from him. But then it had been his very mother who had proclaimed 'opposites are not opposing' when his father had taken to coming home late and kissing her later where she would work over needles for him all day. He knew his mother loved Father the way no other woman would spare the time to, when Father loved a bottle more or a gentleman's smoking hour more than any woman. His father was successful and vicious, his mother hopeless and kind. They were as different as cats are to dogs but they had loved enough to bring him into the world.

He wasn't in love with her and he wasn't going to start being so. With that resolve Henry rolled onto his side and shut his eyes to the world he found so very disappointing.

…

"How do like it?" Jo's hands folded and unfolded nervously. She watched worriedly as Nino ran his fingers across the red stiches.

"It is… I do not know howa to say in English or Italiano." His eyes could not be moved from the gift he reverently touched. "_Bello_," he finally said unable to give his meaning any other way, smiling at Jo. Jo smiled back and tucked her hands under her dress, leaning against the old olive tree behind the shed.

"It's the Venetian's puppy and the ball," Jo pointed out needlessly. Nino continued to smile nonetheless and leaned back with her, looking out at the garden from under the shade.

"You have been _felice_." Nino's words were no more a question than a statement and he sounded deeply satisfied. His deep voice soothed what little anxiousness Jo had left about her hand-made present and her eyes drooped. The afternoon was warm and the now-familiar spot under the olive tree set her spirits at peace.

"Yes," Jo found her head falling on his shoulder easily. "Molto happy." Nino's hand found hers and he squeezed it tightly, his right hand still absentmindedly stroking the poorly cross-stitched picture Jo had made. She frowned at the already loose stitches of grey for the puppy's belly but contented herself to observe the differences between their skin tones as Nino's hand clutched hers.

"When do you think Elaina will be back?"

Nino was silent for a long while and Jo wondered if she had overstepped a line. He had been so open with her about his family – his sister had run away from home when his father had arranged her marriage with their Sicilian cousin and it had torn them apart. Nino hadn't known how much he'd come to depend on Elaina until she left and he found himself alone, caring for a garden she had known everything about and he knew nothing of.

"Never."

It was Jo's turn to squeeze his hand and she mused how one event could tear apart the strongest bonds between friends and family. With no hope of ever repairing. 'Heavens,' Jo's head turned in a half shake of disbelief or disappointment as it rested on Nino's shoulder, 'I know it all too well.'

"Probabilmente," Nino added quietly, almost as an afterthought.

"Probably," Jo said in English as was their custom.

"When are you leaving?" Nino turned to look down at her and Jo straightened up, bringing her hands back to her lap.

"In five days," she said looking back at the old house, unable to meet Nino's all-seeing gaze. He had asked her many times that week, already twice that day and Jo felt her heart constrict a little at the thought of how soon she would once again be alone.

"Cinque," Nino ran a hand through his slickened hair before wiping it on the rag hanging out of his pocket.

…

Laurie pulled her closer and closed his eyes. He imagined Bella's lips thinner which wasn't hard when he pinched her and she puckered, falling into him. His kiss turned desperate and under his lips he could feel her moan from pain or lust he couldn't tell. He couldn't care.

Her hands ran up his back, digging into his shoulders as they fumbled to the bedroom, to a new bed older than their last. Laurie's legs hit the wooden edge and he collapsed backwards, twisting them so that Bella would land beneath. Roughly his hand pushed the strap of her blouse off her shoulder, exposing her breast to the cold night air that filled the tiny room. Greedily his hands covered the pert nipple and he heard the woman beneath him gasp, bringing him back to the present so fast he nearly flew off her.

Slowly he removed himself from her, his hand the last to go until he was lying on his back, one hand under his head as he stared backwards out the small rectangular window.

"What is it?" Bella whispered her breathing laboured as she tried to piece herself back together.

The only answer she got was the sound of quiet panting filling the otherwise silent room.

Laurie watched the clouds change colour as they crossed the velvet sky that hung above them outside that small window and he wondered if he were the Almighty Maker watching him from up there what he would look like. 'A disgrace' he thought.

"Do you remember when we first met?" Laurie was quiet as Bella sighed the question. "It was so hot and I thought I'd seen a ghost!" Her leg crept across his as she turned to him and he resolutely stared out the window, hands safely under his curly head.

"I still don't know what you were doing in Delhi to this day," he said softly, his breathing under control. The lace edge of her drawers scratched his knee cap as she moved to prop herself up on one elbow, looking down at him with her perfectly arched eyebrows. "I never asked when we met again at the theatre."

"I was so nervous for that audition!" Bella laughed true to her name. "And I should never have been once I found that it was you – you were the one they talked so much of – all I should do is smile and the part would be mine. And la, it was! 'Up-and-coming Laurence' I should have thought was your _réel_ name, _mon chou_."

A painted nail scraped across Laurie's cheek and he turned his face to hers, a look Bella was unable to read upturning his features. 'Please don't' he thought desperately. Her nail moved across his brow. 'Please don't,' her hand travelled down his other cheek, feathering by the corner of his mouth. 'With all I have left, please' her fingers danced downwards, across his jugular, his Adam's apple the hollow of his collar bone.

"I'm going to ruin you," the whispered choke filled the gap between them as Bella leant over him, her hand now splayed across his bare chest. The tall lady ignored his words and bowed her head to kiss him, pulling at his lips, her perfumed breath warming his face and stopping his heart. He shut his eyes, brows still desperate. Laurie wished she'd heard him. If she only headed him she might not be pulled into the vortex he was fast approaching each night in her arms, the bottomless black pit he knew he was dragging her down by her mahogany ringlets.

With one slip of her tongue Laurie became the fiend once more.

He rolled them so she sat atop and with a feverish shake he slipped her cream chemise off, tugging her draws down in a well-practiced move. Her nails moved across his chest to his arms, up and down up and down until they reached the waistband of his drawers and she slipped them beneath. Laurie gasped into her mouth and her hips rolled appreciatively on his. Bella tugged his draws down and suddenly the temperature changed and he was holding her closer, closer til there was no conceivable space between them and she was shaking from the proximity.

"Laurie," she whispered, her nails scraping along his length and making his knees week. Bella's locks spilled across his chest, tickling the hairs that smattered across it and with the light and the colour he could very well imagine away her curls into unruly waves better known to no one else but he.

"Oh," he arched into her when Bella's memorable fingers cupped intimately in their familiar pattern. Laurie felt her smile into his shoulder and he quickly returned the favour, feeling the wetness oddly heat his fingers in the lightless room as he stroked, deeper and deeper until she was mewling into his ear.

"Laurie! _S'il vous plaît_!"

Laurie tore his fingers away and tugged her further onto the bed, pushing her hips into his gratifyingly until they both moaned at the contact. Briefly he wondered if she ever imagined him someone different when she shut her eyes and tilted her head like that. The night sky of Paris lit her features until Isobella looked ghostly perched atop him. Quickly he shut his eyes before he lost the moment and began an age-old rhythm that both tore him apart and pieced him back together enough to last another day.

"Mon chou," she barely gasped as his finger flicked her bud and her hair fell across his face. "_Oh mon Dieu_!" He ignored both cries and imagined a matching American voice as dear to him as his own calling his name, his '_réel_' name and he was breaking apart. Pace faster and goal deeper Laurie pushed falling upwards and into the slight woman who was reeling in pleasure as she came a minute early. Eyes squeezed shut his mouth in her shoulder he could imagine and he could make it true. It was Jo not Bella and she was surrounding him, pulling with and against and he was sliding in deep and he couldn't stop spilling, spilling, coiling, falling.

"Oh, Jo."

And fast as that it was all over and he was blinking ashamedly at his confused partner who merely crossed her brow for a second before pushing him off. Laurie felt emptier than before and swiftly pulled the sheet over his cold body, curling onto his side to wince as the bedroom door slammed shut and sobs echoed through the walls from the bathroom.

With tight fists he held the sheets around him and tried to sleep.

…

"What are you doing?" The surprise in her voice was almost laughter as Nino clumsily climbed into her room for the third time that day.

"Visiting! _Visita_," he explained crossing the room to take Jo's hands in his.

"Again?" she asked, laughing properly this time as she pulled them to sit on the bed.

"Si, si." Nino watched her carefully, looking to see if Jo was upset by his almost-constant presence. In her expression however he only found welcome and friendship, the latter he had grown to depend on in the past few weeks. She was so charming and kind this Jo March he hardly had it in him to refuse her everything and to make her laugh had become his whole world in two short weeks.

"Have you talked to your _amico_?"

"No, I'm afraid not," Jo bit her lip looking back to the door that led to the common area and consequently Henry Thompson's gloomy presence. She still had been unable to say a word to the man she had called friend and the freezing cold shoulder he had turned on her every time she entered the room was no great incentive. "I have no idea what I'm going to do with that man. We still have France to go before we even get to London!"

"Hey, it'sa not so bad!" Nino laughed lightly at his own repetitiveness.

"Har har," Jo said glumly.

"You will be friends again, Jo cara."

Jo smiled unconvinced but patted her friend's hand anyway before she leaned back against the wall. "If only everything worked out that way, Nino. But I've long since learnt that things rarely go your way in the world of friendships and it's usually very much my fault."

Nino watched her for a long moment before squeezing her hand. "I don't think that coulda be true." Jo gave another pitying smile and Nino moved closer to face her. "Really, Jo cara! Howa can anyone turn away your friendship, your _amicizia_?"

"Because I always manage to put my foot in it, so it seems."

At Nino's confused look Jo removed her hand to cross her arms looking out the window. "I always say the wrong thing, Nino." Her grey eyes took on a faraway look and Nino watched her carefully as she continued. "It's never enough and it always inevitably becomes the absolutely wrong thing and it ruins all chance of redeeming the friendship I once had. I just – say that wrong thing," Jo finished lamely.

"Well cara, you can say _qualsiasi cosa_ to me and we will always be _amico_."

Jo gave her best smile and left her hand to be taken in a great brown squeeze before Nino leapt off the bed, dragging her to the floor. Quickly he spun them around laughing gaily at the feel of dancing with his friend. Jo laughed too and as they moved about clumsily in turns and dips she wondered how she would ever survive the rest of the trip without him.

"Do you promise?" she asked him when Nino spun her back towards him. The gravity of the situation changed imperceptivity and both slowed to a halt. Breathing heavily, standing to close he broke into a blindingly bright smile.

"Promettere?" Jo nodded quickly. "Si, cara. I promise."

A/N: you guys have turned me into a review whore! I love all of you dearly for reading this and sticking with the ups and downs and 'where is this going!?' bits of the story. Love love love.


	13. Chapter 11

Bella wiped the rest of the kohl from her eye with the back of her hand. She sniffed at her reflection in the mirror against the wall before sitting in the bathtub.

It always came down to this – sitting in the tub whilst she drowned in her own sobbing. It was worse than listening to Alberta's 'Carmen' Bella found and she struggled to muffle the sounds escaping her throat. Her head on her bent knees she wallowed in the dark trying to remember the feeling of warm large hands that burned desire straight to her core. It was cold in the rusting bath.

Running her own hands up and down her sides she turned to look out the small window that prevented the bathroom from being covered in pitch black. The Parisian lights of her birth city turned the clouds a rosy pink and she knew how the effect had always held Laurie transfixed. Although she had seen nothing so special in it herself.

He'd always been a dreamer and she had always been foolishly in love with him.

Crossing her arms around her legs Bella turned away from the window to risk a look at herself in the mirror. There she was, a grown woman in her twenties huddled in the bath with the dying marks of her betrayed love already fading on her arms and hips.

"Pathétique."

Why must she love him? Why must he never, _ever_ call her name when he buried himself within her? Why must he smile only when she flinched at his cruelty in conversation?

He wasn't even coming to her to apologise.

A deep sigh filled the bathroom and Bella frowned to hear it come from her lips. So she should give up and walk away from the man who warned her repeatedly that he was nothing but trouble. Laurie's heart belonged to another, she knew it when he kissed her outside the Lahore Gate. It hadn't stopped her trying, and when he had fallen without complaint into her bed three days later Bella had supposed maybe his love for whoever she was wasn't so great. Even if his eyes told her something entirely different as he hung above her, sweat pooling in the hollow between his collarbone, she could hope.

Rubbing her goosebumps off her legs Bella hated herself a little more for not returning to bed. It would be a painfully long, cold, empty night.

…

Laurie pushed her back against the white stone, revelling in the way her body moulded into his. Jo sighed between her parted lips as his hands crept feverishly across her breast, her hips and waist. He almost laughed to feel her fingers dance across the collar of his shirt.

"Oh Jo," he breathed reverently.

Her lips smiled against his and the feeling that bubbled up in his chest, that swelled his heart so big it felt ready to burst that this was coming home. This was where he belonged.

Laurie's head tilted to the right and he marvelled at the light the sun cast across his Jo's face. The pink and purple hues of the dying sun made her skin glow like the washes of Amy's first watercolours – honest and raw. And so real.

"You should see how you look to me."

Jo's eyes opened and he watched her watch him, saw how her grey eyes – almost violet in this closing light – followed the planes and edges of his face. Her smile turned wry and Laurie had the distinct impression that she had unlocked the secrets of life in studying his well-worn look of devotion.

"I wouldn't change what I see for all the roads in Rome."

"In Rome?" he blinked. Jo stared into his eyes and Laurie blinked again in confusion. "What did you say? In Rome?" Still Jo remained still in his hands. "Why would you say that?"

Something in Laurie snapped and a feeling of sudden self-hatred and nausea swept over him, forcing the tall man to step back. Away from the place he wanted to be most.

"Why would you say that?" he repeated, tears of confusion welling in his eyes as Jo remained unmoving against the white column.

It came to him in a flash and within the same breath he was sitting up in his bed, the breaking light of Wednesday spilling across the empty bed he'd fallen asleep in last night.

"Paris" he mumbled, tugging a hand through his hair as he reacquainted himself with where he really was. "Just a dream," Laurie couldn't contain the disappointment that crept into his voice as he flopped backwards onto the bed.

It was just a dream and he was still an arse.

Instantly he thought of a million ways he could make it up to Bella without ever actually saying he was sorry and all of them were inadequate. He would either have to do it and face the consequences or go on as if nothing had happened. Laurie knew which he'd rather do even on a rather good day but he had promised himself to move on. To pick up the pieces of his life and use his music, use it for what it really deserved. What his Creator had intended. Have some honour in his life so that he wouldn't stare at his feet when Saint Peter called his name and read that condemning list.

"Christ," Laurie half-swore, half-pleaded as he tore himself from the bed.

Jo would lie forgotten amongst those sheets.

Laurie promised to do the washing before the day's end.

"Bella," he rapped on the bathroom door, afraid of what he would find when he opened it. Silence greeted him; still he turned the iron knob and peeked into the tiny room.

It was empty.

Running a hand through his hair he turned about in the bathroom, catching himself in the one long mirror they kept against the wall beside the bath. Naked he saw scratches from Bella's sharp nails across his chest and arms. The red rawness that called memories of moaning and quiet breathing made him frown and Laurie noted his body was still lean, if not a little wiry from the care he had taken. His mouth was almost a permanent glower and his hair had grown well past his ears. Laurie considered a hair cut, knowing it would be the one thing Jo would ask of him not to do. She detested his hair short. He ran a hand through it presently and tried to smile at himself in the mirror but it came out more as a grimace than anything else.

Music might have been healing his soul but his body looked well-spent.

He frowned at the stubble across his chin and jaw that scratched his hand as he ran over it like so. His eyes drooped even after hours of solid sleep and his shoulders sagged as though a great weight burdened them down.

He had to leave. Laurie raced out of the bathroom, bumping into the door and catching his foot in the pool of clothes in his blind haste.

He pulled out the bottom drawer of their dresser and rummaged through for something suitable. Finding what he needed Laurie set about dressing and stopped only to lock the door before he left the apartment.

…

"Have you thought of the maid?" Jo asked slyly, folding her hands behind her back as they walked around the garden's perimeter. The girl in question had been most attentive during her almost-month stay at the inn and when Henry had been his coldest the rosy cheeked girl had smiled and brought her fresh coffee with a bowl of sugar Jo never expected. She caught Nino smiling fondly back at the house, a redness to his cheeks she hadn't seen before and Jo exclaimed victoriously, "Ah ha! So you have!"

Nino turned to her grinning, "Forse…" he said mysteriously but Jo took his meaning.

"You have and you haven't told her!" She took his arm eagerly, pulling him behind the pencil pines. "Oh Nino, why be _solo_ if you care for her so?"

"It'sa not like that, Jo cara," Nino peeled her hands off his arms, squeezing them tightly in his rough grip. "Rosa does not feel the same. Besides, who is _solo_ with you? I have so much time to give you Jo cara."

"But I won't be here forever."

Nino's hands dropped hers and habitually his hand ran through his slickened hair, tugging the rag in his overalls' pocket as an afterthought.

"No, you are leaving tomorrow."

"Si," Jo continued to walk, swallowing hard at the thought of unending loneliness that blanketed the weeks that stretched before her. "My trip might be cut short altogether and then I won't be so lonely. Not when I'm sent home."

Nino followed a little behind frowning at the unevenness in his friend's voice. He did not understand everything about Jo's tour but he was sure it was not entirely a good thing she should be going home so quickly. Hadn't she spoken of France?

"And your French?"

"Won't even be stretched a bit." Jo turned to face him; walking backwards. "No fear of me tripping over my own inattentiveness to pronunciation when there'll be no chance to talk. I believe I'll only be a day or so in Paris now. I've really gone and ruined the whole thing, Nino." Jo shrugged, feigning indifference. "But then that's me – wild Jo whose barbarous tongue cannot be stilled."

Nino gave no sign of hearing her and merely followed, hands in his pockets as one fingered the well-used rag that hung uselessly half-out.

…

Laurie stepped out of the barber's drawing his hand across his jaw in satisfaction. His skin felt smooth once more and the wind whistled through his ears. He felt light, almost dizzy at the sensation and with a quick stride he crossed the street.

He could almost smile.

Hands in his pockets he began to whistle, feeling as though Atlas had taken the sky from his shoulders and he was once again himself. He was Theodore Laurence, musician, pianist and proud American. Now all there was to do was apologise to Bella, win back her affections and forget he ever loved another.

It sounded straightforward but at the conclusion to his thought's Laurie stumbled and lost the melody he was whistling. He had so much to make up for and so much to leave behind. Moving forward once more Laurie reminded himself of his duty to his Grandfather. He had certainly lived destructively and it would take a lot more than a hair-cut and shave to really transform but he owed it to the old fellow if no one else. He hadn't even written to the old man in the past year.

Long legs in grey trousers he walked the streets of Paris, never looking over the edge of the bridges, unable to smile at the women and offering no sign of recognition to the people who greeted him.

…

"_Non_, now hold the note after my count Mademoiselle," the old thin man tapped the piano impatiently before mimicking the timing. Bella sighed, this was not what she had expected for the day. Yes, singing was a distraction and yes she had hours of practice before she could sing the 'Pace Pace' piece in _I due Foscari_ but in all honesty she was unable to concentrate on anything other than Laurie. And the way he cried that woman's name. Straightening she took in a deep breath to begin the bar. Just as the opening note started to resonate the door to the room swung open, causing the old man to immediately stop playing to glare at the intruder.

"Pardon, sorry, excusez-moi."

The teacher frowned further and Bella turned, knowing that voice anywhere. There Laurie stood, looking entirely unlike himself in a pressed grey suit and clean jaw with rather short hair.

"Laurie!" Bella found her hand against her chest for support. "Que faites-vous ici ?"

He was very still and she blinked, unsure of his behaviour. Was he drunk? He looked so clean and dandy it was almost shocking, indeed Bella considered the placement of her hand before tucking it safely behind her back.

"If I may have a word," Laurie bowed sharply, refusing as was his norm Bella recognised to speak French. He about-turned without an answer and Bella reflexively moved after him before she caught herself.

Should she follow him? She thought back to waking up, freezing and naked in the empty bathtub with a crick in her neck she would feel for days. It had been one of the worst nights in her life – not close enough to the top but enough that she did not want to see a repeat of it. If she followed Laurie now would she only encourage further episodes of self-loathing she was entirely unused to and a place in an apartment that had no room for her? Her feelings, her pride and self-respect, her sense of identity?

Isabella's hand clenched behind her back and she turned to watch the old man who sat looking at the opened door. This man knew her as a soprano – one of the best in the underground! Still he had spent many lessons giving Bella a look she knew too well from her mother when she had run in late, blouse askew or was met at the end of practice with her tall fellow who scowled and sauntered her out with a misplaced hand, his tie already undone. She knew what he thought of her without having to ever put it in words. He would smile and compliment her in French under harsh looks and a sour smile and she would curtsey and thank him for it.

But then she had always been good at discerning people's real opinions of her. They were as plain as the sun peaking through smog and she saw it all.

Looking towards the door too, Bella made up her mind. She ended the lesson as professionally as possible and collected her purse and umbrella, closing the door without ever meeting her teacher's constant gaze. She would see what Laurie had to say and then she would decide whether it was quite time for her to cut her ties and move on, perhaps with the Belgium conductor in the north or the actor she met only last week. He had such charming friends. Or she would see if she was in too deep and all too willing to beg for them to continue trying, however unhappy they had been. She wasn't a fool, she knew Laurie.

Bella's hand released the door knob and she turned to find Laurie leaning against the opposite wall in the small hallway. He smiled at her and Bella found herself feeling immediately nervous in that way she'd always thought stupid of her.

"I –" Laurie begun. The sentence caught in his throat awkwardly. Losing his casual stance he stood before her, looking more honest than he ever had to her knowledge. "I've come to tell you how sorry I am. I know an apology isn't nearly enough but you have to know – well, I'm sorry." Laurie shifted his weight, finally unable to keep his black eyes on hers they flitted to the ground by her shoes. "That's it." He shrugged before raising his eyes once more. "I understand if you no longer… well, I'll move as soon as I can find an available spot. I've paid for the month; the place can be yours as you see."

Bella was silent only a minute. "Don't be _stupide_. We should go to dinner now, _non_? Oh _mon chou_ there are so many things I have to tell you about the performance next week. Oh you will laugh to 'ear Frederique's 'Jocopo'. It will be _impossible_ to play opposite him." She took his arm and they begun down the hallway, footsteps muffled on the rouge trainer.

"You aren't mad?" Laurie asked, pulling them to a stop.

"It was a mistake," and that was all Bella would ever say on the matter.


	14. Chapter 12

**A/N:** oh I should probably warn you this one is 'M'. This chapter has explicit sex. Sorry about that.

He held her hand and she could feel his life through his rough palm. Once more - for old time's sake she knew he would tell her - he shook her hand in that fierce grip of his and she had to take a shaky breath.

"Au revoir," Jo said, smiling wryly.

"No Jo, arrivederci." Nino's eyes were intensely serious and Jo had to work hard to swallow the lump that stuck in her throat at his look.

"Arrivederci," she repeated. "Goodbye," Jo's shrug was sad and she looked terribly lost for words as Nino's usual grin was dimmed to a level she'd never seen. His hand still held hers tightly and without so much as a sound for warning Jo found them clutched closely against his chest.

"You willa stay safe, si?"

"Si," Jo nodded.

"You willa make friends?"

"Si," she looked over her shoulder at Henry who waited in the carriage box.

"You willa miss me?"

"Si, molto!"

He paused only a second before squeezing her hand.

"Ti amo."

"Si," Jo felt as though her heart was breaking as she pulled away. She'd made one step towards the carriage before she was spun about and Nino's lips mashed against hers. He was warm and strangely soft but when he pulled away the only feeling she could recall was wet. Nino made a face and Jo burst into laughter. That had felt entirely wrong – like kissing the big brother she never had and always prayed for - and Nino's expression only confirmed it.

"Amici?" Jo asked, laughter still in her voice as she walked backwards to the carriage, loathe to cut short the last few moments she'd ever see her dear friend.

"Amici!" Nino called back enthusiastically, waving even as she climbed into the box. A frown flittered across her face at Henry's dark look before she settled herself and returned the wave out the glassless window. The carriage lurched forward and Jo waved harder, the suffocating feeling of tears and a sob welling in the base of her throat.

"Bye, Nino!"

"Goodbye! Arrivederci, Jo!"

Jo waved long past the driveway and onto the dusty street that took them into the city until her arm ached and Henry tugged the pleated back of her jacket.

…

"'E is so boring," Bella sighed, her words as long drawn as the feeling she was describing. Laurie nodded silently beside her, hands in his trouser pockets as he thought more on the feeling of her thin hand in the cradle of his elbow than Bella's latest leading man. If he shut his eyes but for a moment he could imagine… but no – he was determined to make that clean start.

Laurie watched the old woman on his right spit as she yelled, hawking the wares 'hand-crafted from the fists of piglets' if his French was any good. But then the lady in question was not what he would call 'French' by any standards so perhaps it wasn't his fault if the 'fists'of 'piglets' seemed to be scowling behind the old woman as they made repairs on unsold vases.

Le Halles was not how he intended to spend his day but it was a popular spot and he had simply followed the woman on his arm to the 'stomach of Paris' if only to keep her in such a good mood. To tell the truth, Laurie felt uneasy with Bella's reaction to his apology. If she had exploded and slapped him one, that, Laurie felt, would be more understandable than the few words she gave him and a look he couldn't know. Still, he supposed looking up at her coloured cheeks and dark lashes he should be grateful.

It is only an hour and a half later when they arrive home, as Laurie deposits the exotic candlesticks Bella hadn't bothered to haggle over on the table that he realises just how grateful he should be. By the door his coat hung beside hers, long and grey to her lilac frills. Bella stood in the doorway to their bedroom and she unbuttoned the front of her complicated dress, a sly smile washing across her face as she watched him toy with the candlestick.

His breath catches in his throat and he thinks this woman is too much. She is too much and she will swallow him whole. Laurie moved across the room and covered her hands in his own, finishing the last button until her chemise was all that separated his fingers from her breasts. There is a moment when she tilts her head so that their noses fit alongside each other, breath ghosting across flushed cheeks, that Laurie thinks he wants this. Wants to be swallowed whole.

He does not want to remember being Theodore Laurence.

Suddenly Laurie's lips were against hers. His eyes flittered shut at the sensation, the sound Bella made when his fingers tickled the collar under her throat. He pulled her closer and Bella clutched at his shirt sleeves, dragging them both backwards into the bedroom that held so much promise conversely to the previous night's misery. He found it easier to keep his eyes closed and Laurie concentrated instead on the little gasps Bella made when he grazed the nape of her neck, when he tugged her waist against his.

Wrenching his eyes open Laurie began the hassle that was undressing. Pulling down the top of Bella's dress he smiled at her eager help. Already she was untying the strings of the corset around her waist and he stepped back to let her finish after opening the busk eyes. One hand was all it took to pull apart the tie at his neck and he did it whilst she was distracted, knowing full well it was her favourite task. He wasn't ready for Bella to have everything just yet. His waistcoat was next and it was easy enough. Shrugging out of his shirt and vest he began to work on his belt and trousers as Bella began the struggle with her bustle, the corset having been flung across the room helplessly, a stream of ribbons, whalebone and padded lace along with her skirt and petticoat.

Finally down to his johns, Laurie stepped forward and began to press kisses along Bella's neck as she stepped out of her last petticoat. His hands insistently pushed her drawers down, the whishing of the fabric filling the room with a noise other than heavy insistent breathing Laurie couldn't bring himself to feel ashamed of. Bella quickly drew his hands back up to her chemise and he smiled against her lips as they pulled it over her head together, his hands coming flush against her bare chest almost immediately after it was gone.

"Laurie," she whispered as a moan. His head buried in her neck and Bella busied her hands with the new feel of his short hair, the recently sheared ends scratching her.

"How do you like it?" Laurie asked, tearing himself away from her for a moment before kissing her jaw as the moment struck him.

Bella thought on it for a moment, or at least made a show of it. "Well, it is different." She sounded neither pleased nor destroyed over his choice and Laurie smiled even as a pang for her indifference over an issue almost everyone else in his acquaintance had a say in beat against his chest.

Silent now she pulled them to the bed, sinking when the back of her knees hit wood and a sequence bittersweet and familiar began as Laurie covered his body with hers. Laying horizontal across the bed Bella let her hands drift down Laurie's side, memorising the feel of his muscles rolling under her fingertips as they lightly scraped their way to his drawers. She smiled when he inhaled as her touch slipped under the material and his attention to her breast started in earnest. Bella liked that Laurie was as susceptible as any other man. That he was human, for all his moods, incredible compositions and mysterious brooding he was just as human as the next man. And she, Isobella Rossi could make him _feel_.

"Mmm," he groaned, pulling his mouth from her darkened nipple as her fingers slipped around to his front and she graced him with the tenderest of touches. He looked at her with open desire, his arousal burning the blackness of his eyes into an intensity she had forgotten since he'd cried another woman's name. As soon as the thought crept into her mind a smile twitched onto her face and she immediately pulled down his pants, gasping at the sensational evidence of his growing want now pressed warmly against her thigh.

"Laurie."

His eyes roamed her face from his position by her chest, Laurie's hands gripping her waist as they twisted on the bed until Bella's head was against the pillows and his feet tangled in the sheets.

"Bella." He reached up to kiss her.

"It's enough that you are here," she told him, sounding more unlike herself in that moment than any other. The honesty in her eyes cut through defence he never really realised he had and Laurie found that he couldn't make it up to her. Didn't know how, and didn't have it in him. Here Bella was, bearing herself, being the most gracious woman he had ever known save one American mother who had looked on him knowingly and still let him in, and all he had done was hurt and take and push away. How had he not known what he had?

Jo.

Her name came unbidden as the surest answer. She was always the answer. Jo was every problem and every solution in his young life and here she stole into his thoughts – his most intimate thoughts – as he lay between the thighs of a woman who loved him more than he deserved. What demon was he?

Guilt swept into his stomach and in response he kissed his way from the small but beautiful breasts of the woman he held down her stomach and across to her hips. Against his warm lips Laurie felt her shiver and he closed his eyes, so close to where he could smell her want, her power, her love, everything she ever had for him and he had used, drained, buried and drowned himself in.

Bella watched him carefully, saw the moment his newfound gravity changed and knew from the way he spread her hips with careful hands and lowered gaze that as he thought of the other woman he intended to make it up to her. He would do for her what no other man had yet, with lips she adored, a task the chorus girls had whispered about of their own escapades.

She wanted to watch him, watch the expression on his face but as his warm breath whispered across her hot centre, throbbing with anticipation Bella found her head tipping back onto the pillow. His own pillow came under her hips and with the simple change in direction she was already searching for purchase with her long nails. Her hips jerked when Laurie's lips came in contact with the inner side of her thigh. Bella examined the ceiling paint as his fingers spread across her hips, lips inching closer to where she so desperately wanted him.

At last his lips pressed against her and his hot tongue came out to tease her folds, a swipe across, a lick down and she was a puddle in his grasp. Bella sighed and moaned to the crack in the ceiling, feeling lost at the feeling Laurie created with a skill she had no knowing he possessed. Soon enough his mouth pressed harder, a little lower a little closer and his tongue entered her properly. Bella's hips bucks and he stilled them with his heavy hands. A moan escaped his own throat and Bella involuntarily clenched around his smile.

In and out. A finger was added, then two. She could feel it all so clearly and yet the pleasure, the build was consuming all her other senses. Her limbs were shaking, she was sure and had she the presence of mind Bella was sure she would be embarrassed. But as it was Laurie's mouth was striking such chords within her she didn't know how she could ever think of spending another moment with anyone other than this blessed man.

Laurie continued to nip and plunge and pull and stroke until she was coiled, hot and burning. He looked up just in time to see her head thrown back, eyes clamped shut and with that he ended it. Against her bud he smiled and two clever fingers buried deep in an angle that caused a strangled noise to rise from her throat pushed her over that teetering edge and she was calling, crying, and sobbing his name.

Slowly Laurie pulled back and for the first time in over two years he didn't think of his own pleasure. Bella lay listless against the pillow, cheeks glowing and mouth agape as she tried to recover her senses. His eyes moved to the hand she had against her breast, the other curled by her head and he found he could be as easily entranced with this woman's physical beauty as he could with Jo's.

'It's not so hard,' he thought. Laurie swallowed, a small part of him desperately clinging to the idea that there would be no one but Jo for any part of him. But Bella was here, in front of him and very real where Jo was nothing but a pained past that had to be buried. Before he went past the point no one could pull him from. Past the point he didn't _want_ to be pulled from and oh how close he had come.

It was the bridges he had burned now that he had turned to look back that Laurie knew he had to face. One lay in perfect afterglow before his kneeling form but others, others he had ignored, pushed away or been totally and utterly brutish to and no amount of pleasure would heal those wounds for them.

It was going to be hard work Laurie knew, even as he fisted himself in his right hand. He was going to have to go back and fix a lot of foolish, selfish mistakes he had made. Slow and even his fist began to pump and he found his lips quirked into a smile for the woman who looked at him from under thick lashes he'd grown accustomed to. He would do it, he would fix everything. The warm feeling spread from his stomach down, down into his length. There wouldn't be any quick way but he'd manage. Faster than what had been usual for the past few years Laurie felt the warm turn into a scold and his thumb swiped quickly over his tip, the wetness cooling briefly but pulling the desire even more. Faster his hand pumped and Laurie felt his hips starting to thrust into his grip. Bella began to drift to sleep and he bit his lip as he neared release. Jo mightn't love him when he was finished, when all the pain he'd caused had been healed if not forgiven but maybe he would be okay with that. Maybe he didn't need Jo after all. And with that thought Laurie came, hot and steady into his hand, the mess falling on the sheets beneath him.

…

Henry's eyes were dark and unreadable and for a moment they reminded her entirely of another person whose fondness for moods was at times beyond maddening. Quickly looking away Jo continued to scribble the end of her letter. She would send it at the next stop if she could. Henry hadn't stopped watching her since they boarded and she felt she could do with a little time by herself, even if it was a brief wander across the platform in some Italian town.

Jo wrote to Beth, adding in her current thoughts about her partner. She felt sometimes when she looked up he looked ready to shout at her and others to pull her hands to his and confess something terribly important. But it was all to nothing as he simply stared on silently. If she had thought Laurie's moods were maddening when she was young and full of a desire for steadiness and stability then Henry's unreadable looks were enough to send her to the asylum for she was entirely on edge. The nervousness of her condition would surely kill her before they made it across the border.

And there was a thought, Jo considered, laying her pen down to look out the window. She was sorry to miss Naples and Cannes but it couldn't be helped and it was all her own stupid fault, she felt, gathering up her pen again to sign her love. Busying herself with the folding and sealing the envelope Jo tried to shrug off the feeling of self-pity, thinking that were she still in Rome Nino would only laugh at her and pull her out to play catch.

She was going to miss that boy. With his sunny smile and ridiculously slick hair Jo wondered how she was ever to make another friend who could ever live up to his standard. Especially when one sat across from an unfeeling, terrifically dull and bleak lump of a reminder of one's vices.

If she only had any hope of saving her friendship with Henry as she'd promised Nino. But, Jo looked up to find him still watching her, or at least the spot beside her head, it was simply impossible. Anything he had to say was put into letter or spoken in monosyllabic barks of conversation such as "Move, quick" or "Jo, please."

It was a hopeless cause and once again Jo resigned herself to spending the rest of the trip in unending, uncomfortable silence.

…

He watched Jo drop the letter in the little post box behind the stationmaster's office and resettled himself in his seat, satisfied that she would soon be returning.

He wondered how she could do it – sit there and pretend as if they weren't falling apart with this deafening silence as they passed through the Italian north once again. Henry found himself following her movements in the compartment, unable to watch anything else. It was strange how being in disagreement with one allowed you to do things you could not do before you were at odds. Like watch. Henry had found her fascinating before surely, but it was hardly proper to look at a lady with such scrutiny. He was however at this point no friend of hers. He could see it in her jaw or the tightness in her grip as she wrote some girlish nonsense to someone else she knew. Someone she wasn't trying desperately to imagine away.

Jo's treatment of him only made it easier though, Henry supposed and he was thankful for it. He wasn't sure how much longer he could begrudge her for shortening a trip he had no desire to prolong in the first place and if he was deeply honest with himself as he could be late when the watch in his pocket ticked over to midnight, Jo had been right to hand it to the English fellow in Rome.

She had said nothing no one else hadn't thought.

Maybe… Henry thought as she re-entered their compartment and took her seat beside the window, pulling at her gloves. Maybe he was too hard on her. Maybe he was wrong.

But that was a dangerous line of thought for it ended quickly in fantasies of repairing a friendship that could well lead to something more if he had the right mind for it to. He was also equally sure that if he and Jo were to become romantically involved she would change his very being. He had not yet tired of Henry Thompson. Throwing away thirty-two years of being upstanding, boring but sensible Henry for an American girl with a temper and wit to match would not be what he considered wise. Certainly, Jo was special and she was someone you could easily break your heart for if one had the desire to. The strength to even approach her on such matters. Lord knows he had been privy to one or two of her sharp comments and frosty shoulders when he had inadvertently complimented her the wrong way.

Henry's eyes followed the turn of Jo's neck and he settled himself back in his seat. They would be in France tomorrow and from there it was only a hop, skip and a jump to England where he would be reassigned in the company and back to sitting behind important but familiar desks with equally important and familiar work. The sudden lump in his throat made it difficult to tell whether he looked forward to it or dreaded it. He contented himself with watching Jo's hands, her long delicate fingers worried around her jacket sleeves.


	15. Chapter 13

Amy kept a smile plastered firmly on her face as Fred left the table. Pulling out a paper fan from her purse she aired herself in the midday sun. It was insufferably hot for a spring afternoon and Amy wasn't sure how much more of the heat and Fred's horribly boring stories she could take. Flicking her wrist back and forth she felt the smile on her face wobble and Amy swiftly covered the look on her face behind her fan.

'If only it wasn't so hot,' Amy thought, consoling herself with the idea that it was the temperature that made her find Fred's company so disagreeable. Truth was, and Amy knew in the same way she knew Beth would not last too much longer; the truth was that she'd had enough. Amy had tired of waiting for Fred to show more devotion than just a tender look when he once held her hand in Nice, or the single pressed handkerchief with her initials in one of his many trunks. Amy was waiting for more than a note written in elegant script with flowery confessions that he had no part in constructing. She wanted more than just looks or a pause in the conversation.

Fred returned with two chilled glasses containing the requested lemonade. Closing her fan Amy smiled earnestly, thanking Fred as he passed the drink to her across their little table.

"It's damn hot," he noted helpfully, taking a sip from his glass.

Amy cringed at his language but nodded, knowing he wasn't watching her as much as he was watching the passerbys. One particularly tall pedestrian paused to wink at Amy and she blushed deeply before he continued on. Quickly she re-opened her fan, her eyes darting to Fred but he remained unaware having turned his attention to the paper in his lap. Barely restraining herself from rolling her eyes, Amy took a sip from her lemonade wondering how the rest of her long week would be spent in Fred's presence.

…

He was with Jo in front of the Basilica again, only this time it was his back against the column and her hands against him. The sky changed between day and night, twilight and early morning until it finally settled on the last few seconds of daylight. He breathed in at the look of seriousness on her face, thankful the column took most of his weight as her fingers moved across his brow to the hair behind his ear.

"How do you like it?" he asked with a smile as Jo stepped closer. She tilted her head in a way that reminded him of someone else and time seemed to stop as her breath fell across his lips. Jo grinned at the way his eyelids drooped and his thumb pressed against her sides. "I want to know," he told her with a teasing pout.

Rolling her eyes patiently she pressed her lips against his jaw, her fingers exploring the new feeling of his cut hair. Pulling back to look him in the eyes Jo told him, "It's alright."

He frowned a little at the way she said it – as though Jo was talking of more than just his haircut and he quickly claimed her lips, eager to relish the moment and forget her cryptic messages. Jo sighed into him and he wished he could spend eternity with her thin lips pressed against his, her fingers tickling his scalp and his arms around her waist.

In the convenient way of most dreams Jo was suddenly dressed in her underclothes and Laurie in his and he pulled away to look at her. Her underskirt brushed her ankles and Laurie admired the feeling of his own linen shirt as it rubbed against his arms under Jo's palms. He'd hardly worn his nightshirt but as Jo's eyes ran appraisingly across his chest Laurie thought that maybe he should make an effort to more often. Running a hand from her waist to her breast he watched as the material of her chemise pulled with his hand, the thinness of her frame swallowed in its size. He'd forgotten just how small she was.

Swiftly Jo kissed him again and he opened his mouth under hers, willing to feel the warm touch of her tongue against his. He pulled Jo against him, bending his head down further as she stood on her toes, allowing better access for the both of them. Her short nails grazed the skin at the back of his neck and he shivered, drowning in the feel of her teeth against his bottom lip. Pulling up the hem of her chemise he slipped his hands under and was met with hot skin that moulded perfectly into his palm. Jo moaned into his mouth as he dragged his hands across her stomach to run them along her spine.

The next thing he knew Laurie was pushing inside of her as his hand gripped the marble by her head, Jo's hips clamped around his waist and her back where his was moments ago. The flurry of soft movement and gripping palms was disorientating but Laurie found that he liked it, liked that he couldn't understand anything other than the feeling of being buried in Jo, her face turned into his neck, hands scrambling for purchase.

Hot and tight, the feeling of desperate love had him shaking and he moaned her name, kissing the spot behind her ear urgently. "Jo, please," she met his thrust and he felt his world cave in and suddenly, oh so suddenly he was painfully awake. Twisting in the sweat-stained sheets for a moment, wondering where he was Laurie soon found it was his hand that encased him warmly. He tried to steady his breath lest he wake the woman still sleeping beside him unawares before he moved to the little bathroom to finish himself.

For the first night of his new beginning, it wasn't going so well.

Certainly another part of his anatomy disagreed but Laurie was chagrined to know it was still Jo he clutched in his sleep. Shutting the door as noiselessly as possible he stood over the chamber pot and looked up out the high window. It wouldn't take much Laurie knew, the dream still lingering in the front of his mind, Jo's blunt nails and short gasps of breath almost ghosting across his skin even as he stood in the silent bathroom.

With strong, quick strokes Laurie felt his release burn to the surface. He kept his eyes on the sky, the deep rose and lavender colours swirling as the tension between his grip peaked and he came, spilling fruitlessly into the pot, white dots appearing in his vision of the Parisian clouds.

He tried to feel shame. Honest-to-God tried but when he thought of Bella, splayed across his bed she was only someone. The Jo in his head, she was the trigger, she was the watchman. She was there, always there and he would always come for her.

Was he making the right choice? Laurie looked around the bathroom, trying to ignore the new scent he'd given it. He caught himself in the mirror again and his lips quirked at the sight of his naked behind. Judging the change in his posture, given the tingle of his momentary bliss still coursing through his limbs Laurie figured a lot had changed in a day's worth of hours. But when he thought on why he'd come to Paris in the first place, and who appeared a little too regularly in his thoughts he wasn't so sure.

Laurie had to get over her, he knew it with the same certainty that he didn't like his new haircut. It was just going to take a lot more than a sudden change in direction for his attitude and better paid attention to his dress. 'Still,' Laurie thought, turning to walk out of the bathroom and climb back into the sheets he definitely, _definitely_ intended to wash tomorrow. 'I can do this.'

…

She sighed deeply as she finished the stroke. It wasn't nearly good enough. Perhaps she was only having an 'off' day or perhaps it was Fred's incessant proximity but Amy's painting was certainly suffering.

"Fred, please," she spoke bluntly, not taking care to stop the glare she gave him as he continued his eighth circumnavigation of her sitting spot. The vista was entirely ruined by his unending pacing and the way he just plodded on, hands behind his back was only grating further on her nerves. "If you would only wait with Aunt March, I could have this completed within the hour and we may tour where you wish for the afternoon," she gently pleaded with him.

Fred stopped and watched her with careful eyes. Amy found that she could not hold his stare and blinked rapidly, looking away to the grass he stood amongst. The gentle slope caught the spring sun and coloured its fine leaves in a golden hue Amy found most pleasing – it was the reason she had chosen this park so far out of Paris to paint. Yet she found the whole effect diminished by her discomforting mood that blanketed all her thoughts of beauty and delicate landscapes bathed in freshness that spoke to her soul when Fred followed her around.

"Amy," he begun and the hesitation in his voice made her look up. "Have I… have I said or done something…"

"Oh!" Amy blanched, "What? Goodness no! Oh Fred, if you'd only see that my art is very personal – it has nothing to do with you. Oh I didn't mean it like that!" She covered her mouth feeling like she was eight when he flinched and her tongue had bumbled. "Please, what I mean to say is that when I paint, I usually find it easier to be alone, to immerse myself in the stillness to practice. Fred, it isn't that I don't want your company, but that it would be easier for the both of us if I were to meet you back in Paris for the afternoon. As we agreed, yesterday." She reminded him.

"I see," he said curtly though it was plain he didn't.

Amy smiled beatifically on him and he only paused a second before bowing deeply and picking up the hat he left beside her he strode up the hill to where his cart waited. Amy turned back to her painting, feeling as though everything had been set right. She had caught the look in his eye when she'd smiled and even if he remained dully silent Amy was certain Fred had forgiven her rudeness. All she had to do was smile and Fred turned to easy clay, ready for her fingers to mould. To poke and push a stern part of herself told Amy and she put it up to having Jo remonstrate her for so long as a child.

Amy knew what she wanted and she wasn't afraid to do what needed to be done to do it. She would be successful in everything – talent, money, marriage, they all came hand in hand and if she had to say some upsetting things or display feelings she never felt then that would be what she would do.

She only wished she felt better about it.

…

Jo scrunched the gloves in her lap up, frowning at Henry's back as he spoke fast French to the boys gathering their luggage. It wasn't long before he turned around and saw her still sitting on the platform bench and strode towards her. He stopped short before her, a breath of frustration filling the distance between them as he thought of what he would say next without seeming rude.

"Come along then."

Jo held her gloves and stood, dragging a suitcase behind her as she followed Henry to the carriage. She followed the lines of terraced houses alongside the street with her eyes and couldn't help but think Paris was a lot like Venice, although without the water.

She missed Venice.

"I-" Jo turned to Henry who seemed to be struggling with his words. He sat opposite her in the open-roofed buggy, a frown tugging his lips under his moustache. Jo had seen this look too many times to count and she wondered if he had always guarded his words so carefully around her before she'd lost their friendship. "I well you see, I'm not sure how long we'll be here." He half-smiled in apology and something in Jo inevitably leapt at the sign of civility. "I hope it will be a good deal longer than what you supposed with that Italian chap," his dark look was quickly masked, "so you should be prepared to spend another month or so here Jo."

Her face must have showed every inch of her shock at having been spoken to as though she was not the bane of his existence, as though she was someone he felt responsible for. It was like a load had been lifted off her shoulders and Jo couldn't have stopped the smile breaking across her face even if she wanted to. Henry's face seemed to flush before his brows drew together and he continued to watch the passing streets in his old fashion.

There was something for Paris after all, Jo decided, pulling her gloves back on with delight. Maybe Nino was right in the end and she would have her chance here in this polluted, magnificent, unsettling, historical city.

"'ere we are," the boy jumped down from his seat up front, grinning at his accented English. Henry nodded and opened the side door, climbing out before he helped Jo. Jo herself couldn't stop smiling for the world and when she landed closer to Henry than she'd anticipated Jo merely squeezed his hand before she moved to help the French boy.

"You will like it 'ere," the boy told her as he pulled their luggage off the buggy and onto the doorstep where the maid, a girl no older than thirteen, took over. Jo watched as the girl hauled bags her size up the stairs and frowned a little as the boy and his carriage took off without a second look.

"Let me help," Henry called behind her and Jo flashed another smile for the odd offer from her companion. He stepped with long legs (although not as long as she had known for a certain young man) over the bags and began to shoulder a few, following up the maid who seemed to be apologising in timid French. Jo picked up as many as she could and followed him herself, smiling boldly at the young girl who seemed overly pink as she dashed to get the rest of their things.

Jo entered the room just as the carpet bag she was holding hit the floor and she took a deep breath at the sight. The room was painted in the lightest of blues that reminded her all too much of another sister she knew to be staying in town. Golds followed the panelled walls of the room and Jo could almost fancy herself Marie Antoinette as she spun about looking at the adorning fixtures of the doors hidden in the wall and the plump lounging sofa under the bay window.

"Do you like it?" Jo stopped gaping to look over at Henry who stood very still, watching her with what Jo could only assume was a great deal of patience.

"Oh very much."

Henry nodded once before straightening his stance, bending once to pick up his suitcases. "Good," he nodded again and disappeared through one of the gilded doors.

…

Amy watched the countryside morph into the city as she drove the buggy back into Paris. The midday sun lit the fields a precious gold and she squinted to see it reflected in the glowing windows of the outer-city. If she could capture such radiance Amy knew she'd be the happiest girl on earth, but as it was her paint brush and palette were limited to the soft greens and under hues of the earth and its natural kingdom. Sighing at this fact she pulled the reins to slow as she began to navigate the narrow streets into the heart of the city.

Many a top hat turned her way as Amy drove. This was not a rare or unusual occurrence and Amy had learnt to accept this attention with a particular ease none of her sisters could accomplish. She held her head high and continued to follow the ever-thickening flow of traffic thinking fairly well of herself. If she could continue to garner such attention, even on the street surely Fred would smarten up and see the opportunity in front of him and make something useful of himself. _Do_ something useful.

Turning the corner Amy found herself watching the crowd of Parisians along the wide boardwalk that followed the road. Her eyes followed the soft and muted lines lace and bustles painted beside the tall bold strokes of black that were the men that followed them. She thought it very pretty. Very _French_.

Scanning the crowd further an especially tall fellow caught her eye and she slowed the buggy to see him better. Yes, she saw it there in his posture and ease of conversation, the dark curls under his hat and the tired laze of his long legs as he sat beside a woman she didn't know.

"Laurie!"

The tall man looked up in surprise, turning his head towards where Amy had pulled up short from a sharp tug of the reins. Recognition flared in his black eyes and Amy found herself grinning before she realised it, leaping from the height of the seat to meet him in the middle of the street.

"Amy March! You splendid creature, where did you come from?" Laurie's voice was full of surprise as he caught her up in a tight embrace. Amy returned the hug, feeling as though she'd never left America and all its chummy familiarity. Pulling back she quickly appraised all the changes since their last chance encounter. He stood a little taller and the crease between his eyes had lessened dramatically. He looked almost _well_ in comparison to the last she saw of him. "You haven't changed a bit! Not a scrap!" he declared as if in response to her thoughts.

Really she had to work on not letting her thoughts carry across her face. "You look well," she said a little more serious than she intended. Amy took a step back, pulling at the fingers of her gloves in a nervous habit that made Laurie's eyes flash strangely.

"I am, thank you."

Laurie smiled a moment before offering his arm. Without hesitation Amy took it, looking forward to seeing at least one person Laurie would spend his time with after all his fuss and heartbreak. She should take more pity, she thought as she placed a charming smile on her peerless face.

Her old neighbour moved to clutch her elbow as she was introduced, "Amy, this is Isobella Rossi. Bella I'd like you to meet Amy March, a very old friend of mine."

"A pleasure," Amy said warmly without a trace of the suspicion or judgment Laurie listened for. Bella swiftly stood to curtsey in a pretty rustle of white lace and cream silk. "Enchanté." Amy did not miss the way the woman held Laurie's eyes even as she spoke to her.

"That was hardly fair, calling me 'very old' Laurie." Amy turned to him and he couldn't hold back a grin as she lectured him, a good foot shorter. "Really, one ought to know what should not be said to or about a lady, and I think you should know better."

"Well, to be fair you've done a lot of growing up Amy dear." Laurie moved to hold a seat out for her as Bella began to take her own once more. "Have you seen more of La Ville-Lumière? Est-ce que tu aimes?" Laurie asked cheekily, taking the seat opposite to her. Amy watched as Bella covered the hand he left on the table between them with her own gloved fingers. So he was not so alone and desolate as she'd first guessed.

"Paris is changing, but she has not lost any of her grandeur. "Old Paris is gone" but she will remain a pillar of Europe for years to come." Amy triumphed in Laurie's shocked and largely impressed response to her answer and she diverted her eyes in a well-practiced manner that she knew made her entirely too innocent-looking for her own good.

"You read Baudelaire? No," Laurie shook his head in disbelief. "No, surely you've picked it up from Fred." Amy looked up to find his eyes twinkling.

"Think what you like, I have simply told you the truth of the matter. Oh, but the Jardin du Luxembourg is simply divine!" Amy gushed sounding very much more like the girl he'd known. "The history, the beauty oh it is perfect in every sense, don't you think?"

Laurie smiled back and Bella leaned forward in her seat, revealing what Amy supposed must be an impressive bosom in such a low-hung neckline. "Oui, it is très bien mademoiselle. Tell me, 'ave you seen the Obelisk on the Place de la Concorde?"

"Of course! How could one miss it? Or the guillotine," Amy added slyly, enjoying for some unknown reason the way Isobella suddenly sat back, removing her hand from Laurie's. Amy coolly pulled out her fan, covering her face with a light wave as she frowned at the strange feeling inside her. It was like watching Jo fool around with Laurie all those years ago in the front garden.

"How is Fred?" Laurie asked suddenly and Amy was glad again for the advantageous placement of her fan. Quickly masking her look of shock she smoothly answered that he was fit and well and she was to meet him that afternoon.

"Which reminds me, I will be late if I do not leave. I'm sorry to cut short our meeting," she told them, honesty filling her gaze when she looked at Laurie. He seemed put-out but to his credit he simply smiled, standing to take her hand. "It has been wonderful to see you again, Teddy." Immediately his face fell and Amy wondered what she had said to cause such an anguished look to mar his features so.

"Yes," he said, sounding very choked before he shook her gloved hand quickly, clearing his throat and watching the ground. "Yes, wonderful, thank you Amy dear." Again he was smiling and watching her with eyes she'd known from before he fell in love with her sister and some strange woman who was watching them carefully. "Let's not leave it so long next time. I should like to see Fred again and it'd be so great to know some fellow Americans for once. Oh you and I shall see much more of each other if I can help it."

Amy smiled warmly, gripping his hand firmly. "I wouldn't have anything less Laurie. Please, don't leave it so long, Aunt March and I would be happy to see you. Both," she added kindly before heading towards her buggy again. Laurie did not miss the way she did not include Fred and he found himself unable to look away as she climbed atop the smart black topless carriage that would take her back to his old classmate.

A/N: Hey guys, hope you're happy with this chapter! I hope the gradual increase of sexuality in this story isn't frightening you off. It is ok, yeah? More to come soon.


	16. Interim II

_A/N: Yo peeps, this is a little interim in celebration of 100 reviews. This part of the story happens just before Laurie takes off to Europe after his grandfather convinces him to go – so waaaay back at the start. Everyone that's taken the time to drop a note, you don't know how much your speculation and positive comments have improved my day. I really really thank you for taking the time to read this story. x_

Jo kept her eyes straight ahead on the tyre-swing, knowing that if she looked back for even a second she'd see him. See him standing there staring right back at her. Her fingers fumbled their way into her apron pocket and she continued her saunter through the backyard determined not to let the feeling of his endless haunting stop her. She told Beth she'd pick some lavender, and that was what she would do. His presence wouldn't stop her.

It should have but it wouldn't.

She began a weak whistled tune that filled the garden with more queerness than before and as soon as she'd begun Jo stopped, clamping her mouth shut with tight lines. It felt as though music would never feel right again.

Kneeling in front of the garden where the lavender bush stood willow straight against the shade of the tree, Jo pulled out the scissors she'd borrowed from the kitchen. It would only be a few cuttings, a snip here and there and she could return to the safety of Beth's tender company and a wall of books that would not stare at her with reproach or pity. That would not stare at her with black eyes that seemed endless in their sorrow and hurt.

Oh, but she'd hurt more than he.

Jo risked a glance to her right, back towards the house and there he was, leaning against the fence. His hands were clamped together in his old familiar stance, yet his shoulders were set straight, tensed and his gaze – well Jo looked quickly down at the flowers in her hands. She knew him best and he would say nothing.

Jo leaned back onto her feet, fingers buried in the fabric of her apron as she stared resolutely into the lavender. Laurie had taken to following her like the spectre of the past and Jo had no idea what to do about it – his actions were only in reaction to her own behaviour. If she could only love him, everything would be set straight! But even as her eyes followed the two bees dancing across the purple Jo knew in her heart she couldn't. She'd tried – imagined him as the hero of her favourite novels, placed his name in stead of the men in the romances she conjured up for plays, reflected on the many times her stomach had twisted when his eyes changed colour and depth. But none of it had worked.

The wind suddenly picked up and Jo looked up into the branches towering over her. They rustled with heavy motions, calling to her much in the same way Laurie's playing had for the past two days. Jo put a hand on the lavender she picked; worried the sudden wind would carry it off when she sensed another sound upon the wind, another scent in the air. When Jo turned back to her right Laurie was sitting beside her, his long legs hugged awkwardly to his chest.

"You'll have forever to find out that you love me," he promised out of the blue. Jo gaped back at him, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. Never in her young life did she suspect her dearest friend would stop feeling like home and begin to feel like the uneasy shadow of a ghost. Laurie's hand reached for one of the flowers Jo had picked and they watched him shred the stem of its purple buds, the softness of it crushed between his index and thumb. "If you'll only try!" he looked up at her again, pleading with his eyes.

"Oh, Teddy," Laurie flinched at the careful not in her tone. He didn't want her pity, only her love! Jo scooted closer and something in his chest hitched. Belatedly he remembered he did still have a heart. "I've tried," Jo saw his brow lower disbelieving, "really I have!" She frowned back disappointed by his faith in her. Didn't he realise that if there was some way for all this to end happily she would try anything to make it so?

Laurie's eyes traced over her face slowly, soaking in the look of desperation washed over it – a look he had not seen before on her. Then as quickly as he was done memorising it his eyes slipped lower, hungrily spying every inch of her figure in the pale light of such an overcast day.

"Why don't you love me?" The choked whisper filled the gap between them, almost swallowed by the rustling of the great oak and willow. Pity veiled Jo's eyes again and Laurie quickly looked away wishing that particular sentence hadn't escaped him. Laurie threw the shredded stalk to the ground in front of him and quickly stood, ignoring the grass stains on his slacks to stare down at Jo once more.

"I'm sorry you won't," he said, sounding anything but. "And I won't stay around to wolf down your pity like some blind lap dog, Jo. That's not me and it never will be if I can help it." Jo swallowed and he looked as though he was going to go. "I just wish," he said quieter, his eyes darting down to hers and then across to the hedge between their yards. "I wish that you saw how you looked whenever I looked at you, really looked at you. But obviously I simply misread every," he took a shaky breath and Jo continued to watch him unaware it was tears that blurred her vision, stinging her eyes, "rose that tinted your cheeks when I stood too close, every laugh when everybody else was cross with me. God Jo, every time you held my damned hand I thought you might really love me too – and don't!" Laurie held out a hand to stop the words he saw already forming on her open lips. "Don't say you did but only as a friend. 'Only as a friend'! What great comfort should that be!? I sit there," he pointed to the window of his study "all night watching your window thinking I should be with you – always even if you shouldn't want me – but when you step outside I know what kind of man I am."

Jo blinked; feeling the tell-tale drops of liquid hit her cheeks warmly. Laurie stood over her, looking as tall as he ever did. Looking tortured and grown up and so distant from the boy she'd known, different even from the boy who'd left her by the fence in the grove she didn't wonder why she felt a little afraid of him.

"I love you Jo, but if you won't love me I'm going." He finished simply, his voice deep and resigned. This would be the last time he could and would speak of it, Jo knew as he twisted away from her. She was crying properly now as he took his first step from her and Jo swiped angrily at her eyes. He was the one hurt! She did the hurting, not he! Jo watched him take another until all the tension fell from his shoulder and he spun around retracing the distance with one easy stride where he bent down in front of her and mashed his lips quite surprisingly to hers. Jo made a small sound of shock but his mouth was moving so crossly against hers she dared not move except to shut her eyes. It was wet from her crying but his mouth had gone dry with emotion and Jo soon found the odd bruising sensation spark something that ran down her arms into her fingertips that unknowingly brushed his shoulder.

Still she did not feel as though the world was coming to an end, as though she would swoon from ecstasy and Jo knew as the heroine to her life-book she was not in love. The world would go on and Laurie's heart would still be broken and she would remember the taste of her own salty tears between cracked lips and a desperate force.

Laurie pulled away and with on quick begging look at Jo's inability to face him he stood and marched back home taking the memory of her distraught face with him.

"Jo!" Beth called from the house, her little head peaking from the door into the backyard where her sister knelt running the back of her hand quickly under her nose.

"Almost done Bethy, I'll be right in!" She called, hoping her voice didn't carry the evidence of her tears. As soon as her sister disappeared Jo slumped over her basket of lavender burying her eyes in the crook of her elbow as she wished she'd never left the house that afternoon.


	17. Chapter 14

_A/N: LOL it's been two years. You guys rock for still reading this when I'm taking forever to update all the time and then they turn out to be filler chapters. All my love._

Jo eagerly read the letter, laughing along at Amy's turn-of-phrase when she discussed Fred. She might have designs on him but Jo could see it was going to take a lot of willpower on Amy's part to keep to such designs when she so obviously disliked his company.

"Fred has taken to attending my every need for shade and I shouldn't know what else to say when he is so very attentive and caring," Amy wrote and Jo could see the exasperation for his behaviour in her inability to truly compliment him. She sighed at her youngest sister's insincerity but she supposed it could not be helped in such a situation. If Fred was following her about like a puppy it could only be in consequence to Amy's command over him – which if she read her sister correctly, was all she ever wanted. Well, Jo guessed, that and marriage.

Pulling out a few fresh sheets from her desk drawer Jo began to write her reply, smiling at the pleasure it would bring her sister to find that Jo was in the country, the very same city as she. Jo could not begrudge Aunt March her choice in companion when it was so plainly evident what a good match even-tempered Amy was to the disagreeable old woman. They both seemed to like each other and it was better that Europe would be seen in high spirits and not black moods, Jo decided. Aside from all that, Jo had found her own niche in the world and it had proved wild and adventurous even if she had spoiled it all in Rome, she was determined to remember the best parts of the trip. She would not be ungrateful.

Jo wrote of her trip, her other letters having gone to Orchard House along that stretched train ride from Rome. She wrote too of the changes in Henry since they had set foot in France. The past week had been coloured unexpectedly by their civility and Henry's continuing change in warmth. He'd even taken her elbow to dinner last night and they sat in companionable silence over lamb and gravy. What Jo didn't write was that she saw his hand tense beside his plate all evening and when he smiled at her goodnight the lines under his eyes were tight and his words were all over the place. Had he really forgiven her, or was it all just his way of getting through the last few weeks?

"Mademoiselle?" Jo looked up from her letter to the quiet voice by the door.

"Yes?"

"Sir would like to see you, when you are ready," the girl looked skittishly at the paper under Jo's fist before curtseying quickly and disappearing behind the door. Jo looked back to her letter, capping her pen. She would have to finish it later. Soon though, for she was desperate to see Amy, any bit of her family, a real friend and although they'd never been the closest Jo knew Amy was who she needed. Distance had made them closer if the warm intimacy of their letters were anything to go by and Jo felt she needed someone who she loved and she knew to love her in return. Her sister was that person.

Standing, Jo gave one last longing look to the letter and empty paper before approaching the common room with her head held high and a pleasant smile gracing her face. Jo opened the door to find Henry standing with his hands behind his back facing the window. Promptly she joined him and took in the vista of the streets of Paris in the morning. Young boys dived at each other, tugging scarves and pushing and shoving as they walked along the makeshift paths alongside the road whilst flat-capped grimaces whipped their horses along, smoking from their single-seat carts. The few women that dotted the prospect frowned along with the men driving as they rested baskets of goods against their artificially shaped hips, yelling at the boys who almost ran them down. Jo wondered as Henry's gaze shifted about whether he caught all this in his silence.

"You wanted to see me?" Jo prompted, careful to keep her tone friendly and inquisitive. It was not often she had to charm her way to friendship intentionally and Jo found that her behaviour rubbed against her grain.

"Yes, quite!" he said quickly, turning to her as he shook off Paris with one shake of his head. Jo's eyes caught the slight curl of Henry's hair behind his ear and speculated on why she had not noticed how his hair had grown before. What else had she missed in her fixation on her faults? Henry was changing before her and she hadn't seen it – hadn't factored that into her own examinations on their partnership. "We have much to discuss – we have not yet formalised our plans for Paris and a week has already passed us. You'll be eager I hope to continue with readings and signing copies? Really we haven't spoken much about our very reason for being here!" He smiled under his moustache and Jo blinked dumbly back. Who was this man? The Henry she had boarded the train with had surely been replaced by an imposter who was taking his notes from their former good acquaintance without having heard of frosty silences and sharp frowns.

Jo quickly recovered her surprise and nodded, slapping a smile in place as they wandered over to their twin desks in the centre of the room. "No we haven't but then it would be very rude of me to babble on about my own work now, wouldn't it?" Jo asked, fist clenching at the thought of a boy she had never taken a second thought on 'babbling' to.

"Quite. Well, I should think you'll want to see the itinerary, eh?" Henry opened the drawer in his desk to pull out his black leather dossier which Jo knew to contain every letter and note and ticket and mark of their trip. He passed it onto her with a business-like firmness she was much more accustomed to, before and after their disagreement and Jo read through the week's schedule. Most of it was illegible to Jo's eyes for Henry's scrawl was far too narrow for her to comprehend so Jo simply smiled after going over the page for an appropriate length of time and handed it back.

"Excellent, we'll begin tomorrow if you're willing?"

"Oh yes," she said, moving to take the seat at her desk as Henry took his. "It'll be good to get back to it."

"I had hoped as much," Henry took his pen with his old flourish and Jo smiled at the endearing action he seemed oblivious to. "Excellent," he repeated softly, addressing envelopes.

Jo herself began to continue writing Amy, leaving nothing of her partner's strange behaviour out.

…

Amy set her cup of tea down carefully beside the letter she was re-reading. Her fingers ran along the edges of the paper as she mulled over the words it contained, a light blush staining her cheeks as she sat in the sunny corner of the parlour. Her lace-gloved fingers drummed lightly against the rosewood table and Amy wondered if the words she considered meant anything more. Laurie had written and she had been unable to put the letter down since she'd received it.

"Dearest Amy," he wrote in sharp neat stroked that reminded her that he devoted much of his time to manuscripts. The title itself was nothing great but Amy did not rule it out in her musing. "We should and shall meet again. What say you to five; Wednesday on the _Boulevard des Italiens_ where it will feel more like home to you and your company should you bring Fred? Do bring Fred if you must. I should like to see an old chum; I have not had the pleasure of English company since Venice and it has been all too greatly missed for what it is. I hope very much you will come." He had signed his name in the old way and Amy found her thumb absentmindedly caressing the scrawl as she looked out to the garden. She could not quite discern his hidden meaning about the English but for the latter part of his note, Laurie seemed practically desperate to see her and the thought sent a little thrill through Amy who for the most part was so coolly composed to any onlooker.

Amy tried to recall the last time he had sounded so much like his old self in a letter, for she had received a small number over the past few years and she knew him to be short and sharp and entirely impersonal since leaving America. Perhaps it was Paris, or perhaps it was time but her old neighbour seemed in sight of healing. It was with this thought that she wrote her reply, missing another letter left unopened beneath Laurie's note.

…

Laurie twirled the pen lazily around his fingers as his head lolled in the afternoon sun. It was a pleasantly warm day and the sun's surprising warmth had put Laurie in an odd sort of spirits. The heat served to remind him of days where he cared only for fun and larking and the smaller hand of his dearest friend in his as they spent the day by the river. It was not an entirely unpleasant sensation to be reminded of happier times he found so long as his nostalgia did not stray to more recent memories of – well, he wasn't going to go there was he?

The open window clattered in the light breeze that picked up and flittered its way into the apartment, playing with the paper Laurie had set out before him. Eyes still shut Laurie lifted the capped end of the pen to his mouth, giving a few thoughtful taps as the sun continued to beat generously across his face. The warmth made his toes curl in their pale grey socks, his feet on the table as he balanced all too casually on a wooden chair. Laurie could almost see himself back in the March's kitchen, being a nuisance by being no help and just around for the company. Beth would smile knowingly, offer him a cup of tea – she was making one for Joanna and it would be no trouble – and Jo would come bounding in, flour making its instant way onto her as soon as she was in the room. He never did know how flour simply appeared on Jo the moment she stepped into the kitchen, but it was always there.

"Laurie!"

Laurie's reminiscing directly faded as his eyes opened and he looked for Bella. "Hmm?" he mumbled his voice gravelly. He must have been close to sleeping for a moment there.

"Oh, there you are," Bella bustled as though the place was larger than two rooms and he was near impossible to find amongst their lack of furniture and the sage-coloured boards of their walls. "Mon chou, have you…" Isobella seemed hesitant to continue and he saw the careful look he knew to mask her embarrassment. "Finished the manuscript? You said you would two days ago mon chou, and Laurie, the director 'as been asking for it."

"Has he?" Laurie snapped, his legs falling off the table as he sat up. "I didn't know," he oozed sarcasm as he turned his back to Bella and took to scratching the paper with his pen.

"Don't be difficult!" She sounded very much as if she wanted to stamp her feet and Laurie wished she would, to take her childishness only half-way was beneath Bella's attention to perfection. Before he knew it however, he had scribbled out a letter and he stopped only after signing his name.

"We'll be seeing Amy in a few days," Laurie turned to see Bella standing by the sofa, fists clenched. At her lack of recognition for the name Laurie elaborated, "My friend. The young blonde lady we met on the street at that café you enjoy so much." Turning back to the letter he folded the paper and placed it in an envelope, scribbling her title fully intending to find her address at the post office before sundown.

He had allowed himself to think of Jo, he had let Bella under his skin, and he had yet to make a mastery of the music he so desperately clung to. This would change; it had to along with every other inch of his miserable life if he were to make anything of himself lest he be swallowed by that bathroom mirror. Something had whispered to his mind that little Amy - golden hair and fair-cheeked, grown in the company of Fred (no less!) her cultured charm and aristocratic sensibilities - was in who he might find some guidance. A little support and guidance was what he needed, and he had gone without for so long he'd almost forgotten what they were until he met Amy in the street. She already had command over him in those short few words, her wit and grace surprising him into delighted compliance.

Laurie stood, crossing the room with determined strides, stopping only to press a kiss to Bella's cheek before he left the small apartment, heading for the closest post office in the arrondissement.

…

Laurie paid the man before helping Bella alight from the seat. She smiled at him and he found his eyes lingering on the rouge that painted her lips. She had been unpredictably sweet to him with those lips in the past few days and it would take a man greater than he to not want to lock those feelings - those pleasures she gave so willingly – up to keep for himself for kingdoms to come. It seemed as though arguments could be forgotten if the mood was right and Bella was compelled to remind him who he was to their world.

As it was, Laurie found he must divide his time with better-made plans and Amy's letter of reply came as a welcomed distraction, despite the lazy gratification he shared with Bella. A set of circumstances she seemed intent on reminding him of every chance she'd had today. A note of discord settled in Laurie's throat as he lead Bella to the gazebo and he tried vainly to ignore it as he had Bella's unsubtle reminders. It would only serve to tell him he was fooling himself lying in the clutches of an equally selfish woman every night and really the reason he was so glad for Amy's letter was that he was truly happy to escape such a confinement. But these were selfish thoughts in themselves and hadn't he sent the letter to find his better solace in an old friend? Yes, Laurie decided, his hand tightening around Bella's elbow, he would ignore this tightness in his throat, the red whispers in his ear.

He hadn't realised just how much he'd missed the youngest March until he found himself wondering what she really thought of Fred or how the curl of her golden hair would feel between his fingers. Amy had been a girl when he last saw her in America. Their chance encounters had shown him a more cultured, clever and social woman had replaced the girl whose vocabulary suffered and artistic nature ached for something greater. He was not sure she should marry his college friend and that worried him more than any of the other changes about her. What should it be to hi if two of his friends had found delight in each other? Laurie saw the couple ahead and quickened his pace much to Isobella's chagrin who wished to arrive fashionably. He would reserve judgment until he was properly reacquainted with them both and he could see for himself just what it was that kept between them.

He had a sneaky suspicion it was Fred's forty thousand pounds.

"Laurie!" Amy cried in a voice as refined as any. Laurie had forgotten between their short meetings just how physically changed she was. Her character had shaped and formed into the sure woman before him, he knew, but when she stood only two feet in front of him Laurie was made aware how other things, equally fascinating things, had shaped and formed to hold the pale blue of her dress most artistically around her bosom and hips.

"Amy," he grinned, bending to hug her tightly. "I'm so glad you've come." A moment of reading her expression between smiles and he suddenly turned to her partner with enthusiasm. "And Fred old boy!" He clamped his arm around the gentleman's, giving it a fierce a shake as ever – even as something inside him warned he was on the edge of acting very much like the man he'd been in Venice. "Still keeping to the delights of our Yankee shores I see."

Fred's mouth twitched, not so with the delight Laurie had mentioned as he pulled back to stand closer to Amy. Turning to see the young lady's expression Laurie was met with a very old look of warning and disappointment. If she had not learnt to hold her tongue, he knew Amy would tell him 'that was rude' and there would be no end of it. Still there were others to think of and Fred was saying something equally clever and cutting to him about shores and euphemisms, Laurie was certain had he paid attention to one word.

"Yes, well this is Bella – Fred, my old friend from college, and you've met Amy."

Hands were shook and skirts curtsied and Amy's blue eyes settled on Laurie's soon after with the judgment he'd dreaded. Well she would have to see everything if he was to confide in her and tease her blessed help out for his greater good. "Shall we take a walk?" he offered, picking Bella's arm when he intended Amy's.

Fred had nothing especial to contribute to the conversation and when Bella spoke it was only to mention Laurie's most recent triumphs and her little parts played in them. Laurie would swiftly change the topic back to Aunt March and Amy would beg for more information on his self. Word grew tight and stilted and soon Amy would turn to commenting on the surroundings to which Fred was always quick to lend a compliment on her artist's eye and Bella to reference her French heritage. An hour went past and Laurie felt no closer to his old friends than before and he found his much-considered outing had gone astray with politeness and delicate comments.

"How long will you be in Paris?" Fred finally asked after a long stretched silence.

"Well, I guess it all depends on how long interest keeps me here." Laurie threw a cheeky smile to Amy who only frowned at him in return.

"So you do not make yourself useful then? Paris is for your amusement?" She asked, an old sought of haughtiness unintentionally turning her nose up as they walked one of the many gravelled paths. They had left the upmarket bustle of _Boulevard des Italiens_ sometime after it had been mentioned just whereabouts Laurie was residing. Bella's name had not been mentioned but he knew Amy had read it in the older girl's eyes from the way her cheeks coloured and she would not meet his own.

"_Non_," Bella began, condescension colouring her tone. "Laurie writes music." And as though that should explain everything the tall French lady returned to watching the line of trees that hedged the park.

"Yes… I'd heard," Amy's hesitancy caught Laurie's attention and at his questioning gaze she elaborated, steadily watching the path they walked. "Jo wrote me in Venice." At that name Bella's head whipped around, her gaze frosty on the shorter lady that walked between both men. "She was quite enthralled with your concert. As much said she'd never heard anything like it or better –" Amy finally looked up to see Laurie's black stare on the ground and in a burst of girlish praise rushed, "and I'm sure she was right Laurie, you do have a gift."

Still processing this news, Laurie's reply was delayed and he blinked slowly back at the girl. "Yes well, I'm nothing yet." There was an awkward pause before Laurie blurted, "And she said she liked it?"

"Oh yes. Only I'm sorry she hasn't written since – is she well, do you know?" Amy asked, believing he would have heard more recent news of her sister. Laurie's face said otherwise and the pain that flashed there surprised Amy.

"No," he half-choked. 'And I shouldn't care' Laurie silently added, looking forward again. His hands immediately found his pockets, and with a stride brisker than the rest of the party Laurie soon found himself walking ahead blessedly alone.

Amy looked to Bella to see if she would follow but was met unexpectedly by the blackest of looks. Not knowing what to say or do Amy simply held Fred's arm a little tighter and wished she understood just what happened with Jo and Laurie. From the tone of her letter it seemed they had found common ground again and settled on better terms but Laurie's reaction told a different story and Amy was certain she was missing information. Perhaps, Amy considered, one of them inevitably said the wrong thing, as they often had as children, fuelling the fire that scolded only each other.

…

Laurie silently enjoyed the crunch of the stones under his feet as he walked on. It was a satisfying sound with such thoughts that spun about his mind, the catalyst walking not twenty feet behind. He should have known better than to think Amy some godsend. She was Jo's sister – how had he expected an unbiased, uninvolved solace in the young American he'd never know. He'd been such a fool.

He still was.

Fists clenched tightly in his trouser pockets, Laurie's boots scuffed the path. His thoughts turned quickly to Amy's innocent remarks on Jo's opinion of his music. He never had been very sure if Jo actually liked his music but hearing it from her sister confirmed something that whispered to his heart that Jo understood it better than anyone. Just as he intended. It swelled his chest like a secret and he mulled over the suppressed elation he was definitely feeling from the knowledge that Jo _liked_ his work. Was 'quite enthralled'. His heart skipped a little beat and Laurie's mulling brought it up in evidence. Should he be feeling this way when he was so determined to forget Jo's influence? To be better? But it was useless denying such a giddiness in his mind that she should _like_ his music – it was all he had wanted for so long, and he hadn't known he would ever feel it even with Jo's own answers to his probing. But he knew now and didn't that make all the difference? He should have been chewing over the lost cause that was making Amy his personal saviour and the small jealousies that sparked from her knowing Jo better than he as a sisterly confidante. And yet here he was, feeling an almost silliness that twitched at his lips. Jo _liked_ his music!

But no, he should think of Amy. How wrong he had been in thinking she would be his out – the opportunity to find himself in this hollow wallowing that had taken over his life, which left him cold in the arms of a woman whose mind he knew all too well. Even if her kind of comfort left him in such a numbing heat that he could remember in dreams someone else if he was honest with himself was all he wanted. If he was honest with himself, which Laurie made a business of never being. Not anymore.

Obstinately ignoring his heart had only benefited him these past few years and it had come to show him how Jo had been able to. He had been so sure… But ignoring any true feeling of his that associated itself with her had helped bury a pain he wasn't sure of ever escaping, not now that Amy was so unaware of the situation. She might've taken his side but Laurie would not take that chance, not if she should receive a letter of Jo's and feel it her duty to report back. Sisters were like that; he assumed and wisely decided that he would have to rethink his escape. Laurie was back to square one and knew he had to rely on his determination and strength of character that he had known to be admired by Jo herself.

Laurie watched as his heavy stride spooked the pigeons along the grass to fly and he knew, it was up to him to pull himself out.

…

The others caught up to Laurie at the edge of the park and Amy watched in disappointment as the tall young man made his excuses to end the late afternoon. Indeed the sun was kissing the ground beneath the tall pines and Amy graciously shook his hand, pulling him aside only for a short moment.

"We will see you again, yes?" She looked as unsure as he. Certainly this outing had not gone to either's expectations, but Laurie was such a friend that she could not see him go in bad spirits. She had missed his company terribly and it was a striking comparison to see him next to Fred – his charm and cheek brought a colour to her life she didn't consciously know she missed. But it had been made clear to her today just how that colour came at a price – Laurie's moods were nothing new but since Jo, well they made her nervous with their new looks and distance. She hardly knew what to say to him to bring him back to his self. "Oh please, don't let us be strangers Laurie. I've been away from home so long and you don't know what a great comfort your being here is."

Laurie's brows rose at that but he squeezed Amy's small hand gently. "I'm sorry today wasn't what we planned, and I promise to behave myself better next time. Of course we should see each other again. _You_ don't know how I've wanted a friend Amy dear," he said, the boyish honesty of his words settling in the corners of his eyes and Amy smiled genially back up at him for his efforts.

"You will have to come see us where we are staying – Aunt March has arranged everything with Fred you know, so I hardly have to lift a finger to be happy, but I would like for you to be there all the same." Laurie frowned a little at that, reading Amy's meaning clearly. "Still, for now how about we settle for meeting at that café for lunch, _non_?" Amy asked with a coy smile and tilt of her shoulders he found perfectly charming for her attempt at cheek.

"_Absolument, mademoiselle_," he grinned, kissing her glove hand as the Europeans. Amy blushed heavily but admonished him on the spot, offering a frank handshake over his silliness.

"As you have it," he winked at her, walking back to take Bella's arm as he shook Fred's hand. "Tomorrow?" He asked with a smile Amy had missed greatly. Bella was already walking and Laurie looked over his shoulder eagerly. "Tomorrow!" she called back, smiling herself. It wasn't a totally disastrous walk after all if she could make him smile so, Amy thought as Fred led her to one of the buggies that lined the road.


	18. Chapter 15

"That girl knew!" Bella cried as soon as they stepped through the door. She was strangely silent along the walk home but Laurie had put it down to exhaustion – the woman had vocal practice for four hours straight the night before and the long walk of the day must have been in uncomfortable in such shoes that she wore. He shut the door to their apartment before turning to her.

"What girl knew what?" he asked tiredly, pulling off his hat and coat before collapsing on the chair at the small wooden table where unfinished letters and manuscripts lay amongst the dirty dishes of their meals.

"You know exactly what!" she hissed and he watched in confusion as she paced back and forth, trying to stop herself from being hysterical.

"No… I really don't."

Bella whirled around pointing distantly at the ground. "She knew her!" Gritting her teeth she spat out the name in a harsh whisper. "Jo."

Laurie blinked back in surprise. He hadn't thought of that. He turned in the chair to look out the window, his hands moving from their folded place across his stomach to cross his arms, one leg over the other in their lazy spread.

Bella crossed the room to push at his shoulder, "Comme une image!" His head turned towards her. "How?" the tall woman demanded, standing back to look down on him with a glare that churned the guilt inside of him. Laurie had hardly told her anything about Jo, even after the few disastrous times he'd spoken her name – especially after that one particular time. It was his private business and he hadn't seen what Bella had to do with any of it.

He cleared his throat as he looked away. "They're sisters," he said quietly. He looked back to see Bella swallow compulsively, a hand running through the twisted hair on the side of her forehead.

"I see," her voice was just as quiet and she moved to the kitchen. Laurie continued to look to the window as he listened to her heating the kettle, the clank of metal and swish of water marking such domesticity. There was an uncomfortable silence when the sounds finished and a short sniffle filled the emptiness that made Laurie chew the inside of his lip.

This was it. This was the chance he had been waiting for, even if hadn't known it until now.

Laurie spun about in the chair and stood to see Bella standing awkwardly behind the cabinet that served to partition their kitchen, her arms about herself as she stared at the kettle.

"Bella."

Isobella looked up, her eyes full of anger and hurt and Laurie was actually sorry he was the cause of it. She didn't deserve this any more than he did. "I think it's time to call this for what it is," Laurie straightened the odd bow at his neck, flicking the short collar of his shirt right before he stepped towards Bella. "We neither of us love each other Bella. This has all been, well I'd said I'd call it and it has been a business of needs and selfish wants but I have to get out – I have to- well, I'll just say I can't do this any longer Bella, and I'm so sorry but – that's it. I have to get out." And with a half shrug he made the next step to her, kissed her cheek and walked into their bedroom to pack his things. Shocked, Bella remained frozen in the kitchen facing the window he'd sat under, watching the stars settle across the strangely clear night.

…

There was no second meeting at the café the following day as arranged. A letter was sent instead without a reply address to Amy who resided just outside of Paris where there was true green and open space for Aunt March who complained of the dirty smoke in such a city. Amy received the letter with disappointment but she was quick to think of another time and place to try with Laurie and was stopped only by her inability to post the note directly to him.

Laurie was otherwise occupied with finding suitable accommodation for it was impossible for either Bella or himself to stay in such a place. Bella had behaved as he expected, her theatrics calling complaints from their neighbours and her French was impossibly fast and crude so that Laurie had no peace when he was under the same roof. He did not intend for either of them to keep the place and he handed in his papers the following morning, taking the suitcase filled with clothes and a satchel with music as his only possessions.

…

Jo pushed the heavy material of the curtain aside and looked out. It was early morning from the look of the dark purple sky and she frowned at the lack of light. She couldn't sleep, not after the dream she'd had and so Jo found herself curled amongst a ridiculous amount of pillows for one person at the head of her slightly oversized bed looking out the window.

Her dream had been more of a memory than anything but it was as inescapable as it had been three years ago when it had actually taken place. Laurie's mouth was hot against hers and Jo found her fingers absentmindedly stroking her lips. She felt as though it had been seconds ago and her mouth still tingled at the sensation although the less than pleasant feelings of the moment overpowered it almost instantly. Heavens her eyes felt raw and Jo blinked them a few times for good measure. It wouldn't do to cry about something that happened so long ago – a lifetime ago it felt.

And to think he'd asked her again on the steps as they said goodbye! Jo turned away from the window, letting the curtain fall back as she stared into the darkness of her room. It was strange to recall the feeling of his arms around her as he begged her. She could never forget the look on his face as she told him, a third time that no, she could not and his heart had broken its final piece as he never looked back and headed for shores she'd thought she'd never know.

Then everything was different and the Professor had written her and she arrived to a New York that would make her famous. Or somewhat more than the mediocre writer she felt she'd fallen into playing. Black eyes reminded her to trust her mind and she fell into writing like she'd never before to make that final script, the one that won her a trip to Europe and a business life so far from her old one that had broken apart without her dearest friend and a holiday she'd been promised. Jo had made the best of the situation, everyone home had told her so and Jo learnt to smile and be thankful for the change of luck in her winds.

When she'd met Laurie again change had once more spun her about and left her crawling in its tracks. Jo never did like change and it was proving more and more to be her bitter enemy as it broke apart everything she settled with, everything she was content to hold to. He'd been so different, yet every inch of the man she'd feared he'd become without a home to call his own or true friends who loved him dearly, better than anyone. And then he'd been kind to her, laughed as his old self and larked about the canals as though something had tricked the stranger out of Laurie's body and given Jo her friend back. But it had been something passing; no doubt another shade to the many colours of his moods.

So she accepted it and tried to move on. But it was difficult when her quieted mind would replay tender scenes and equally sad ones as she slept without control to turn to writing. So Jo found another sleepless night of the month as she turned back to the window, holding the curtain in one hand she wondered how long it would be until the sun rose.

…

Laurie signed the papers in his straight, narrow script without the flourish or pomp that many men of his wealth would. The man on the opposite side of the desk received the pen and papers with a frown at the young man's state of attire and missing hat before he passed the envelope that held the keys over.

"So that's every first Wednesday of the month and I'll thank you not to forget."

Laurie stood, picking up his suitcase, tapping the envelope against his chest. "Thank you," he said, giving the small man one last look-over before he left the room to find his own.

The stairs in the building were straight and plain and Laurie didn't spare a second to miss the spiralled ones of the residence he just left as he climbed them to the top. Finding number twelve he tore open the envelope and unlocked the door to find the smallest apartment he had yet lived in. It was a single room with pale grey wooden floors and cream walls not unlike his last place with Bella. Laurie left his suitcase beside the little wooden bed that sat in the corner to his right. A quick survey of the space showed a small round table, two chairs and a bench with – surprisingly – a porcelain basin.

There was a tight little balcony off the wall opposite the door and Laurie climbed onto it through the small window with difficulty, his long wiry legs bending and stretching to accommodate his equally tall frame. Finally out Laurie rested against the iron banister and found the view to be of neighbouring apartments and the narrow street he'd walked that ended astonishingly close to the city.

"Yes," he spoke to no one but himself, bent over the railing with his hands loosely clasped. "This will do."

…

He found Amy waiting for him in the café before he arrived and Laurie stopped before greeting her, intent on watching her unnoticed. She sat, one foot curled around the other in pretty white boots he supposed Aunt March had chosen. She wore a bone white lace embroidered dress and looked very fine with bonnet and matching gloves. Something tickled him when Laurie saw that she had not ordered beverage or food and he smiled to think she waited for him. Amy had the manners she strove for as a girl and it pleased him to know that someone at least was happy with the changes time brought. Growing up had not suited them all as well as it has Amy.

Laurie approached her, placing his hands over her eyes unannounced.

"Laurie!" she cried, laughing and he pulled away to take the seat beside her, smiling too.

"I'm sorry you had to wait," he said. The pink of her smiling lips drove him to a surprised distraction as he settled in the painted white iron seat and Laurie silently wondered how she did it so unintentionally.

"Don't be, it was not long. Fred has the buggy today and so I rode with him. They are so much faster than walking – not that there is anything amiss with a walk," Amy was quick to add, realising Laurie must have arrived by foot.

Laurie smiled. "Nothing at all but want for company." His eyes moved to Amy's pearl-coloured gloves. "How charming," he said not without a smirk as he picked them up.

"Thank you," Amy quickly took them with her sharp tone and pulled them on with an ease Laurie had not thought possible for a March girl. "So, you walked alone then?" Amy asked casually as she motioned for service. The boy brought two coffees, milk and sugar with Amy's and Laurie realised that shad had in fact ordered before he arrived. Well, he thought, feeling a little deflated at that.

"Yes of course."

"Oh, it's just-" Amy looked up from stirring her cup, blinking quickly. "Well I thought perhaps you might have brought Bella." Amy finished with a small shrug and Laurie could see that she was fishing.

"I know how you prefer me blunt Amy, so I won't mince details. I don't believe you shall meet Bella again, at least not in my company." He sipped the steaming hot beverage – the liquid burning the tip of his tongue. "I moved last week actually."

Amy remained silent at this news but Laurie could see curiosity eating away at her. It was in the way she pulled in her bottom lip as she watched the cup. Oh yes, he could tell Amy wanted to know more and he was even tempted to tell her, but it was only yesterday that he resolved not to involve the girl. She wasn't his confidante when they were children believing to be grown up and she wouldn't be now that they were.

Could she?

His eyes followed the slim line of her wrist and Laurie found himself unintentionally comparing Amy to her sister. True it had been over two months since he last saw Jo – and even less in his dreams – but the slenderness of her figure was quite like that of her sister. Yet Amy bore herself differently, there was a grace in her movement that no worldliness could conjure in Jo and in her colour and clothes Amy outstripped Jo without contest. Still, Laurie mused as Amy's gloved hands brushed a pin nestled in a coil of her gold hair, he'd never been on for blondes, even in Switzerland. The girls he kept company with all had brown hair and if he could help it, clumsy hands – neither of which were in Amy's power.

"Do you still like pork?" Amy sipped her teacup with those delicate lips Laurie assured himself were not to his fancy. "I know you were rather fond of it at Christmas and I took the liberty of asking for it." She further explained at Laurie's blank look.

"Pork's fine. Thank you." He didn't say that the reason he preferred it so was that Jo would always save him the biggest pieces, no matter who sat at their festive table. He'd hardly thought of it any other time of the year.

"I must say, I was surprised to find Fred here. I didn't get a chance to say before but I find myself in the position of being an older brother to you Amy and I have to ask frankly – are you engaged?"

Amy was staring at him when Laurie finished, his hands together on the table around his coffee. He had surprised her into silence he guessed and congratulated himself. See if his bluntness wouldn't eventually offend.

"No we are not," Amy replied calmly after and episode of blinks that made Laurie smile to himself. "I'll thank you not to ask such things, Laurie." She picked up her cup, leaning towards him, saying lowly, "You are _not_ my brother or my keeper."

"I thought you wanted me blunt."

"I did not want you rude!" She retorted missishly and Laurie sat back in his chair feeling properly chastised.

After a moment of awful silence Laurie said quietly, "I'm sorry."

Amy looked tried only for a second before a genuine smile of forgiveness settled over her face and she reached out a hand to touch his arm. "_I'm_ sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. You are one of my oldest and dearest friends Laurie – you are part of my family and I have given you every right to pry." Laurie shook his head smiling wryly. "No really, what right have I to be so affronted by your concern when I have marmed over you to a fault."

"Justly reshaped me, I believe."

"Whatever you call it, I have done you wrong and I'm sorry Teddy." Amy squeezed his arm affectionately and he swallowed.

"_Don't_."

But before either could say anything further their meals arrived and Amy withdrew her hand and Laurie his tongue. They took luncheon in silence.

…

Amy settled at her desk, her face a picture of wistfulness as she straightened up the contents of the busy surface. She was considering the darkness of Laurie's brow and whilst she knew it was silly she found it brought back many memories she had forgotten. Most she had tangled with the story of her sister's friendship with the boy and moments where her young eyes caught his serious looks towards their garden and the fancy she had taken as she considered their neighbour and long friend as a possible visitor to her little shrine were quite forgotten.

But she had sparked such a look yesterday and the thought of it had plagued Amy since. She had done nothing wrong she was almost sure – her words were nothing by apology and understanding but when she had spoken his name and held his arm in solicitude he had darkened perceptively.

'_Don't_.' Amy ran the word through her mind again and again, his expression perfectly memorised, burnt into her as painful as it had been in real life. What had he meant by that?

Amy's busy fingers had ordered piles of mail and stacks of blank paper sheets as she thought on Laurie and it was only when she looked down at her work did all thoughts of the man fly out of her head for the first time that day. There sitting between her hands was a letter addressed to Amy in Jo's handwriting. Sitting forward in her chair Amy grabbed the letter opener and deftly sliced the envelope. Pulling it out she read her sister's words eagerly, every sentence of humour and frank wit pulled at Amy's heart and by the end of the three sheets she found she missed Jo more than ever. They had kept in regular contact by post before the long break after Venice and Amy had been disappointed with their cease. She'd gotten to know Jo's mind better even than when they lived under the same roof and Amy had grown under the knowledge that Jo, her older sister, her most trying and difficult sister respected and loved her, even when she had taken Jo's place beside Aunt March in Europe.

Amy placed the letter on the desk and thought of a time when she believed she might never be friends with Jo. None of her sisters fought more than either of them and Jo vexed her like no other and she annoyed Jo as no one else could. It seemed hopeless that long ago but things had improved as they got older and Jo learnt to control her temper to some degree and Amy looked to things greater than the homeliness of Orchard House. In the end physical distance bridged the gap created in their childhood and Amy felt certain Jo understood her heart almost better than anyone – even Meg although the thought hurt for her eldest sister had greater concerns with a family of her own and Amy's European experiences were far beyond Meg's walls in Dove Cote. Jo however had seen many the same sights and tasted the grandness of the world that lay at their young feet. She knew Aunt March's complaints better than anyone and understood the inconveniences of male company. Yes, Jo understood Amy as well as she understood herself and it was with that thought that Amy wrote her reply with a tender smile so distant from the look she wore when she first sat at her desk.

…

Jo closed the last book with a long sigh. "Merci, Madame." She smiled tiredly at the portly woman who thanked her and took the novel, clutching the prize closely to her swollen chest.

Looking around the room Jo searched for Henry, it had been a long day and she wanted nothing more than to return to their apartment and collapse on her bed. It was an especially nice bed, the pillows having feathers like none she had slept on and a duvet with primroses across the spread. Really it was just what she might've pictured in Meg's old castle, before John Brooke and babies, but it suited Jo just fine. Chin propped on the palm of her hand Jo's tired eyes spied the figure of her business associate standing in the furthermost corner, predictably schmoozing with a greying man whose beard looked quite impressive, clipped across his jaw like snow in a gutter. It would be some time before she could catch his attention so Jo lost herself easily in her thoughts as her gaze stretched across the dark room filled with poets and fellow writers.

She had been surprisingly popular among these gatherings, her mind and opinions she knew were more amusing to company more than clever and admired but it was nice all the same to be heard and feel useful. She'd forgotten how much she enjoyed just being part of discussion and debate – for Jo had avoided those things avidly since she spoke her mind in that room in Rome and embarrassed her partner horribly. It was safer to say nothing than attempt to control her temper and still have an opinion. But since their improved civility and dare she say 'friendship', Jo had abolished that silly notion and participated like no other in any and all conversations in such gatherings, minding not what Henry thought or how she would be received. It was comfort enough to know she was being herself, after all, wasn't that the most important thing in the end? Jo did not wish to betray herself in order to hold onto one friend if he had no desire to be hers in the first place and so with great gusto and unknowing charm Jo was her usual jolly self, moral and proud as she rebutted negative comments about women's suffrage, help for the homeless and poor and supported the more artistic movements of this great city. It had won her many friends and boosted her confidence so that Jo did not walk on tender toes around Henry at their residence or in company and she begun to feel more like her old self than even with Nino in Rome. It was a welcomed change and one she had hoped would reinstate Henry's old self too but he seemed as nervous as ever in his language. Still he was warmer than before and she did not begrudge him for trying at least. Perhaps things would never be the way they were before but their situation was an improvement.

It did however lead her to thoughts on another friendship she thought irreparable. Jo had not heard a word from or of Laurie since he walked away from her in Venice and it worried her to think he had turned away from her family too. Surely, Jo thought that if he were to write to them they would tell her so. Any little bit of news would be welcome.

Sighing again Jo looked up to find Henry crossing the room toward her. Amy had at least written and they were to meet next week for afternoon tea at the great house she was staying at. Jo swallowed at the thought of meeting Aunt March's inevitable judgment, but she reminded herself that she was strong, successful and an honoured member of her profession, even if she knew exactly what Aunt March thought of that profession. Jo knew she would bear anything to see Amy again – to embrace her sister and see her in the flesh – and she would have to for the company she kept.

"Well, another successful night, eh Jo?" Henry smiled down at her and Jo grinned a little tiredly back.

"Very much so, but now I believe it's time to hie me home and into bed." Looking down to fetch her things Jo missed Henry's coloured expression that lingered somewhere between embarrassment and desire and when she stood, satchel in hand, umbrella in the other in place was a friendly but distant smile. "Coming?"

"Most certainly."

…

Amy sat quietly with Aunt March, her eyes not on the needlework that lay in her lap but on the window beside her that afforded the best view of the front yard from the bottom floor. She had chosen this room for their morning activity so as to be the first to spot her sister, for Jo was coming this morning and it was all Amy could do to contain her excitement and be useful under Aunt March's well-informed gaze.

"Well, it's eleven past twelve and she's not by yet. I daresay nothing has changed in that girl's character that would encourage such success as you say Amy."

Amy turned from the window to smile patiently at her aunt, picking her work up again. "I'm sure it's only an accident and she has been caught in the weather, Aunt. It is very wet and we did only move the time to morning two days ago. Oh I do so hope she got the letter." Amy worried, pricking her finger in the process.

"I hear a buggy now," Aunt March noted, leaning forward to see for herself but Amy was quick and jumped out of her chair immediately, heading for the door. "We can only pray it's her at a quarter past twelve!" She called out loud enough for the girl to hear.

Amy opened the door and grinned at the sight of the small buggy pulling up at the great iron gate that separated the estate from the dirt road that lead back to Paris. The door opened and out hopped a figure with such spirit that Amy knew could only be Jo. Amy waved spiritedly towards the figure who unlocked the gate and began to walk with a barely restrained spring Amy knew meant she was about to run from many embarrassing trips into town when they were spotted by company. As soon as the girl looked up a smile broke across Amy's face and she continued to wave as yes, Jo picked up her skirts and ran towards her with the silliest of grins.

Jo ran up the steps, ignoring the pins that fell out of her hair from her quick movements and the state of her dress as she held it, trying not to trip. "Oh Amy!" she cried happily, feeling the giddiness of girlhood overcome her as she ran to embrace her sister.

"Jo! Jo! Oh, my Jo!" Amy met her sister halfway down the steps and threw an arm instantly around her. They laughed happily, holding each other tightly. Both were uncontrollable in their beaming and giggling for the closeness of family was like nothing and to have it in their arms was unbelievable and much needed.

"Ahem," came a polite if not impatient call from the top of the stairs and both girls pulled apart to see Aunt March standing impressively with walking stick as she looked down at them. "If you're quite ready to greet your Aunt, Josephine we should move indoors. The cold air is really quite too much!" She sniffed, hiding a smile when the lithe girl ran up the stairs to embrace her too.

"Aunt March! Oh it's good to see you both. It's been too long and nobody is quite like family," said Jo with rosy cheeks that Aunt March thought unusually charming as she took Amy's arm and hobbled inside with her two great nieces. "I'm sorry I was late," Jo apologized. "It was raining when I left and I thought I'd walk, it is so lovely a walk to this part of Paris but I was caught between arriving on time and soaked or fashionably late and somewhat drier," Jo grinned cheekily at Amy who laughed even as their aunt scoffed.

"I might've expected as much from you Josephine. You never could keep to a given time. Why I remember waiting several minutes for you every day you said you'd call to read and I will say it is uncomfortable for a woman such my age to be kept waiting Josephine."

Jo smiled, the old anger she would have felt from Aunt March's remarks long replaced with humour. "Yes, Aunt."

They sat about in the front room parlour; the sofas close to the large windows in an effort to catch what little light that could be gleaned from behind the clouds. Jo saw a portrait of a strange family on the wall nearby the door they entered and she silently wondered who the house belonged to. Her eyes finally came to rest on Aunt March who, Jo could tell from the hard look on her face, was assessing her at that very moment.

"Amy, dear pour us some tea will you? It's too early for coffee."

Amy smiled too, looking at Jo as she stood to poor the tea. "Yes, Aunt."

Jo looked at her sister and aunt as they chatted lightly together about the quality of tea in Europe and the price differences between that of here and America. Amy tended to Aunt March quickly, not forgetting the teaspoon Jo always had – their aunt did not take tea or sugar so she didn't see the need for it – and always had a clever yet agreeable addition to their aunt's strongly expressed opinions. She smiled fondly at them both, even as Aunt March commented sharply on the quality of anything that was not American and thought how lovely it was to be with family again. Yes, there was nothing else quite like it.

…

_A/N:_ Finally! The chapter you've all been waiting for is next. It's taken bloody forever to get there and these past few chapters have been some of the hardest to write because I've basically had all the good bits that you want to read written for some time but I've had to put our characters though all this to get them there. Writing this has been like chess, when you know how you want to take the king but you need to go through the motions with your pawns first.

Also, this story is going through some revision at the moment – and more when I finish so that'll explain the chapter changes and why some of your reviews might be getting mixed up.

My deepest apologies for how long it's taken to get to this point but from now on it's all downhill. Thank you for your patience and understanding guys. Your feedback has been most appreciated.


	19. Chapter 16

Closing the door behind her, Amy moved to sit alone in the front parlour. The day had been bright and beautiful and yet the feelings Amy felt as she watched the tall figure disappear down the wide path towards the road were as mixed and dark as a storm. Her fingers tapped the white-painted window ledge and she wondered just how bad a person she was.

Amy still hadn't told Laurie she'd met her sister.

He'd called three times within the past week alone and Amy was always happy to see him. Too happy, Fred had once offhandedly remarked as he moved into the hall for billiards and she guiltily realised she was. Amy had grown to expect Laurie's company, at the estate, to town, when she walked, when she painted. He hadn't stayed away and wasn't exactly unwilling and they quickly fell into a habit of light flirting and deep talks. She had admitted her doubts about Fred, or really Laurie had guessed as much on his fifth visit to the big house they resided in and she hadn't said no or told him off. The telling off, or lack of it was always the biggest sign for Laurie who let the girl command him about like a servant, fetching paints or stools or a buggy to save her short legs and Amy quite enjoyed it. Laurie hadn't pressed the matter and she'd hadn't mentioned it again, but there was an understanding in the way he would direct Fred's attention when in the same room, or ask him to billiards or pool when she was growing vexed.

Laurie had shared pieces of his past sparingly and Amy held every quip or admission tightly. She saw it as an opening into his life and Amy had found she wanted very much to remain part of whatever life that may be – although appallingly shocking it seemed at times. They weren't quite the tall neighbour and youngest daughter they'd been so many years ago but Amy was pleased by the changes. She welcomed being the first in his affections, for there was no one else he was quite so eager to please or attend and she had missed this as a girl. Jo was always first when they were even playmates but without the loud but loveable girl, Amy had found her place in Laurie's heart – if only a friend for the meantime.

She felt sure there was something more around the corner.

Amy turned away from the window when he disappeared from her vision and she picked up some idle cross-stitching she'd put down when Laurie arrived. Pulling the bright red through one hole and crossing it diagonally to pull through the next, Amy tried very hard not to think that the reason she had not told Laurie Jo was in the country, and really had been in the same house and places as he, had held the same hand and embraced the same people just recently was that she wanted to remain first in his thoughts for a little longer. Amy knew, a blush staining her cheeks in the quiet room, light in its white walls and pale gold sofas that she was very nearly in love with Laurie. But it was a secret she would rather bury than spoil all she had designed.

Fred was still her friend and she was courting him not Laurie. She did love Fred in her own way, however much his behaviour irritated her or his lack of topical and delightful conversation tired her – Amy was sure she loved Fred, even if it was only a little bit and she could marry him just as she planned. It was well enough to love an old friend who had known her so long, loved her family and was pleasant and nice and looked after her and cared what she actually said but Amy had a plan and she would not let her silly thoughts or surprising feelings get in the way of it. She had invested too much.

Besides, Amy thought, finishing three squares nimbly before moving onto the green thread, Aunt March favoured Fred and she could not see her liking the tall, loud and grinning man that Laurie was, even in his youth. Aunt March's opinion had come to mean a great deal to Amy for she knew the woman thought with her head not her heart and really, wasn't that all she aspired to? Her art was where her passion was best placed and on the topic of marriage it was best to use sense – Amy never intended to marry a poor man.

But Laurie wasn't exactly poor, was he? And that, Amy supposed, the needlework falling uselessly in her lap as she looked upwards in consternation, did not help matters. How could she put distance between her thoughts of Laurie and Fred when her material purpose for marriage became moot? It was a difficulty she wasn't sure she could overcome lest… well Amy wasn't really sure whether Laurie was still in love with Jo and if her sister still felt the same. There were many tears shed on Jo's side, she knew when the boy first asked and Amy had been positive Jo was being foolish in refusing when she so obviously cared. It was Jo's choice however though she hadn't been happy to see the injury to both parties Amy was a little glad Laurie left so quickly and it was never spoken of again. Time changed all things and Amy held onto her secret about Jo a little longer. She would tell Laurie at the right moment.

The right moment Amy imagined, was when she was sure just what Laurie truly felt for her sister.

…

He scrambled through the papers on his small table for the manuscript. It was here somewhere, Laurie was sure but he'd left it in the most unmanageable state in favour of a few choice outings with Amy and he'd hardly thought to leave his work out in the hall. Besides, what sense would that be if someone else should pick it up?

"Just a moment," he called distractedly as he rifled through the papers further. He was certain it was in a leather green folder. It was where he'd always kept his manuscripts but then, he had been in a bit of a rush… "Ah! Here it is!" Pulling out the folder Laurie flipped it open to find the few sheets he'd pieced together and pronounced 'music' tucked safely inside. Turning around he met Bella's hard stare. She frowned at him and for a brief moment he thought on how unattractive that made her coloured lips before he coughed and passed the documents over.

"Well there you go."

Bella nodded sharply before turning about slowly, her natural grace reminding him of a dancer as it always had. Amy had a similar talent although admittedly it looked a little different on her small stature.

"I see you 'ave… rationalised." She remarked, not without disdain. He thought it odd how well tuned into his thoughts she was for having no contact in three weeks but quickly realised she meant the size of the room.

Laurie nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yes." He wished she would leave.

"The director will be pleased," she moved the manuscript from one arm to the other, finally heading to the door.

"Well that's all we've ever wanted isn't it?"

Bella spared him one withering look for his sarcasm before she quickly left the apartment and he could hear her heels clicking against the broad wooden boards of the hallway. Laurie shut the door and sighed loudly, the sound filling the small empty room in a thoroughly depressing manner.

Seeing Bella again had brought to the light feelings he hadn't known he was really repressing until her hand grazed his or her eyes looked to the floor instead of his. He was truly free of both her affection and his and Laurie found himself without regret. He now knew where his attention had transferred, or should he say whom and something inside of him whispered of a greater love filled with understanding and virtue that stood just out of his reach. Laurie of course knew that this person was Amy for he had thought of no one else for what seemed like months but was only weeks. He had spent every chance he got with the girl and although she seemed to like him as well as ever, save the few remarks about his lifestyle choices – which were slowly improving thanks to her unknowing influence over him – Amy seemed as coolly detached from the world of passion and romance as ever. Certainly she flirted as well as any other lady, and her coquettish manner intrigued him to no end but she lacked the fire that would spark to something more than a pretty blush or an arm on his. She was still well sought after and Laurie could see the way Fred watched Amy that she had as strong a command over him than ever. Fred was very much attached to the girl and Laurie had no intention of coming between them.

Yet there was that demon that lived inside of him that suggested he try for Amy's heart for she was most likely the best chance he would ever have – she was his better and equal in one. If he could ignite such a fire within her he might find the very happiness and consequential salvation he wanted so much. If he could catch her cool heart and warm it to a slow-burning ardour Laurie was sure that he would be as contented as he could have been with her sister. Amy was clever, poised and he delighted in her rule over him – she was the wife society begged and if he was ever to climb back into the world his grandfather had kept safe he needed her. She knew right from wrong and she wasn't afraid to direct him to deliverance.

And so Laurie considered the idea of winning Amy's heart and hand in align with his old plan to save himself. Also if he was just clever enough to save her too from the confining boredom she so often alluded to. Still, there was Fred and Laurie would have to find away to avoid hurting his old chum if he was truly to embark on this trace and that would be as difficult as finding the fire he believed of Amy.

Maybe he would, but that world lay a long while away and he was content to have Amy as a dear friend and Fred in his somewhat good graces. There would be time for a love he dreamt of at night – though not the same woman - when he was better aware of his own heart and mind for now, everything was beginning to bud and for once he did not intend to sabotage his opportunity for happiness. He would be very good friends with Amy and if that should stretch to something else, he would not be found unwilling when the devil asked him to jump.

…

Jo made a small number of appearances with Amy's party about the tourist spots for Henry had seen to it that she busied herself with work such as she had not done since Berlin and Cologne. Amy made an even smaller amount of Jo's openings and readings for Aunt March would express the same opinion at a quarter to four in the afternoon since Jo's first visit to the house, that 'it was an all-fired scheme to write to live' and Amy did not wish to go against her.

There were a few decently lengthy walks though that afforded Jo and Amy the time they'd desired together and many thoughts and feelings were shared between the sisters. This was one such a gathering and the unadulterated sky that hung above their hatless heads did nothing but help the flow of bosom secrets.

"I really don't know what to do with him when he looks so…"

"Helpless?" Jo offered with a short laugh she quickly smothered at Amy's sour look.

"I… Jo I don't know if I should even think such things let alone speak them, but I'm ashamed that I don't love him half as well as he loves me." Amy's arm tightened around her sisters and their slow pace ground to a halt under a wide old yew that hung its low branches over the dusty road.

Jo unhooked her arm from Amy's to twist her hands behind her back in thought. "I think you should do what your heart tells you Amy. You may have never wanted to marry a poor man but there is no shame in marrying for love." She brushed the long yellow plait from her sister's shoulder with a tender hand Amy had not known from Jo when they were not making-up. "If you marry Fred because you think money will bring you happiness, that status and fortune are all that life need offer you for your eternal bliss, and you are sure they are - then marry him. Do what will bring you happiness Amy; that is the only advice I can give. You must make this decision for yourself but I'm sure Marmee would caution you against a marriage without love and respect, not that one with Fred would be so," Jo coughed quickly. She truly did not know what to say to her sister when she knew Amy's only cares were for society and love was placed second place on her list. "We will love you no matter what you choose Amy. We only want your happiness," Jo reiterated, taking Amy's hands.

"Oh, I know Jo. It's just so hard. I haven't even told Marmee of this – how does one write such intimate thoughts in a letter? I did not think such adventure would come at the price of losing one's closeness with family."

"Hey! You still have me," Jo grinned, clapping an arm around Amy as they walked on. Amy smiled back, resting her shorter head on Jo's shoulder as she wrapped an arm around her sister's waist.

"I do, and you're the greatest gift of all – Europe is nothing to you my Jo."

Jo blushed, looking out to the fields. "Oh say such things and I will be too big for my boots to walk home," she joked, nudging her sister. "I was telling the truth though Amy, we will all love you, even those left behind at home no matter what you choose. If Fred's the one then marry him, if he isn't, well it isn't the end of the world dearest. You've the world to fix your flint."

"Thank you, Jo." Amy squeezed her sister and they continued in contemplative silence as Amy considered the similarity in Jo's advice to Laurie's even if one had been more forward as the other loving.

…

Fred stood in the doorway as he watched Amy sit with Laurie in the southernmost drawing room. He was careful to remain unseen as he watched them converse thinking how well Amy looked as the light filtered through the window beside them. She always looked well, but the effect made her look simply angelic in her simple white frock, gold braids woven about her head like a queen's crown.

He knew she would make him the happiest man alive when she said 'yes'. He had only to ask her and Fred knew Amy would be his, would be his wife, the mistress of his home and heart. There was something that caught in his throat though, whenever he walked into the same room, or held her small hand as they strolled about the estate's park. She would never quite meet his eyes and whilst her smile was pleasant and she was always polite he never felt she was truly being herself in his presence. He had only to watch her with Laurie to see this was true and it was – why she was vivacious and charming and he saw how she blossomed under his friend's attentions and Fred wasn't sure whether he should thank the lad or not. He rather thought not when Laurie pulled at her hair or played idly with her fingers and Fred begun to wish the elder sister was still by. Laurie seemed to be in danger of transferring his old affections for one sister to the other who was most conveniently on hand and it worried Fred that he would not learn to clear his throat to ask Amy before Laurie had charmed himself into Fred's place.

He was no fool after all and Laurie was just as fortunate as he in wealth and influence.

Amy began to look around the room, no doubt a response to something Laurie said inappropriately and Fred quickly moved closer to the wall, hidden by the burgundy press that hung in the window panes of the folding door. He watched as Laurie did indeed take her hand and Amy had the grace to flush under her friend's administrations. He saw Laurie run his thumb over Amy's shoulder, too tenderly for his liking and the girl did nothing but smile back, albeit a little shakily.

If he could only hear what they were saying, Fred complained silently, leaning his ear against the cold glass of the door.

"Oh, yes," he heard Amy say. Was that whisper just a little too fervent?

"Good! Well I'd hoped you would, I mean I know I haven't been the best of gentlemen but you've improved me." Fred frowned at the compliment.

"Really Laurie, if you only put yourself to real use, I'm sure you'd find this happiness you want. Perhaps you do not want it enough?"

"Music is fine."

"It is not enough then."

Fred did not understand much of their conversation but he knew the Yankee to have studied piano and the Frenchwoman from the park had said something about it being his profession or so he discerned. Still, their words were so vague they could have meant anything.

"You don't understand. I've tried everything but –" he heard Laurie clear his throat and Fred considered asking how the man did it. "Well Switzerland does not have the flush of America. India isn't as colourful and Italy is just as cold. I couldn't be happy until I found you Amy, I don't think you know the good you have done."

"I could not have done much. Your grandfather wrote me last week."

There was a long pause and Fred waited patiently to hear what the old man had to say about his boy. "Oh?"

"Yes. He has asked you to take the business in London and yet here you are in Paris, suffering for respect and honour when you spend your days in taverns and theatres where you say you are not wanted and do not wish to be! How can I understand you Laurie when you praise my influence but my hopes for you have gone unheeded?"

Fred heard a great deal of shuffling and he stepped back to give a quick look past the door. He should have felt embarrassed of his eavesdropping but his friend's true relationship was as pressing as sensibility and he chose to continue even as he caught Amy cross the room to stand dangerously close to his position at the door. Fred ducked back but listened intently as Laurie followed, his heavier gait creaking the floorboards before it scuffed the carpet rug.

"I'm sorry I'm so useless but you're the only one who understands! You must know this!"

"If I am then you should listen to me Laurie. I only want what's best for you but if you want to be saved you must _try_." Amy sounded well at the end of her patience with the young man and Fred congratulated himself on remaining the respectable man his father had shaped. He should never have asked for a woman, a girl as young as Amy to help him in such a humiliating circumstance that Laurie had found himself in. Fred stepped back again, feeling sure Amy would quickly quit the room and he wanted to be the first to calm her. He peered in at the two figures and felt glad Laurie had shown his true colours and Amy had found only fault when he tried to cover them with flattery to her command. There was a moment yet, when Amy moved closer to the tall lad and her hand fell on his arm and Fred felt that imperceptible tug in his stomach as his throat dried.

"Oh Amy!" Laurie bent and his cheek fell against her chest and Amy found herself holding him even as her face flushed with heat. Half in jest and half in desperation he cried, "Make me good!" And Fred left the hall quickly, not stopping to look back.

…

Amy stood by the window in her room on the second storey, looking down at the young man that walked to the front door. He was right on time which really should no longer be such a surprise to her, for Laurie had been increasingly punctual to every meeting they arranged in the past month.

She let go of the curtain and left her room quickly, taking the stairs two at a time to reach the tall boy before he reached the door. Fred had gone to the city for the morning and Amy had only a half hour at best before he brought back her sister. If everything went to plan they would all be on equal footing by the afternoon as Amy arranged for Laurie to stay.

There was only the matter of convincing him.

"Laurie!" she smiled warmly as she opened the door and he stooped to embrace her quickly.

"Well my lady here I am and here's my thanks." He squeezed her tightly, spinning her about the foyer before putting her back down and strolling into the front parlour. Amy wondered at his behaviour before paling as she realised the view the room afforded of the front gate.

"Wait –" She stopped Laurie from sitting with a hand on his arm. "We always use this room," she smiled casually and led them to the sitting room on the opposite side of the house. Amy could not help the relief that washed over her as they entered the room with windows for walls and Laurie commented on the difference. "Yes, it's one of my favourite places in the house. I'm only sorry we do not use it more. It affords the best view of the park."

"I'll say," Laurie took a seat, his eyes on the grand trees that covered much of the lawn before it sloped onwards to where he knew the land was less tamed.

"Might I ask what has made this visit so much more enjoyable for you?"

Laurie grinned at Amy beside him. "You mean why I thanked you? Ah well, as you know I still see Bella every now and then when my music is needed for Monsieur Monette at the local theatre. You have spared me my duties however and in reward I promise to send another letter after my first to London." Laurie winked before throwing an arm along the back of their settee and Amy crossed her hands hoping she had put the right wheels in motion.

Amy spared a few moments to watch Laurie as he looked out to the garden, thinking hard on her plan. There was no stopping it now but it was calming to think Laurie really was trying to get-over Jo and be done with her unintended harm. He had written his grandfather and was tying up his affairs as well as he could whilst still making time to visit her and Fred and the improvement on his mood had been a pleasant though unexpected additional benefit. Laurie spoke of feeling useful, like time was finally passing and he was no longer 'going through the motions' but readying himself for importance. And it was with these little speeches he gave that Amy felt confident in organising his meeting her sister – even if he didn't know it. He would do less damage in his current form than previously she was certain, even if there was still a very real chance for danger. She worried for three, but it was time she revealed the truth for all their sakes.

"Laurie, have you seen the pond? It's just down the hill, past these trees…"

…

"Jo, please."

Jo laughed, settling her teacup back on its saucer as Amy stood to pace.

"I can't imagine what is so important down by the pond." Jo said, laughter still colouring her tone as she stood to calm her sister. Amy spun about spluttering and Jo laughed again.

"Please, I've arranged everything very carefully. Jo stop laughing! You're making me nervous."

"And why would that be?" Jo rose a brow teasing.

"I'm only asking that you walk to the pond. There's something there you need to see, as I've said and it took a great deal for me to arrange this. Again," Amy said irritably hating to repeat herself, "As I've already said."

Amy remained serious even after Jo joking suggested that Amy meant for her to go by the lake as it was the perfect spot for a murder and Jo was obviously the target. Jo could not have known however that another person made the exact same joke not twenty minutes beforehand and Amy tried hard to smile. The action fell short of real but Jo took pity on her sister and with one last squeeze of Amy's hand she headed off down the slope, wind whipping at the tendrils of hair that no net or amount of pins could ever contain.

A final wave and cheeky grin was all Amy saw before Jo stopped looking back and Amy went indoors, hoping she had done the right thing. It could only be a good sign that nothing great had changed in Jo's manner – she was still like Laurie even with three years between them and a heartbreak Amy prayed would not lead to an actual murder.

…

Jo let her arms swing loosely at her sides as she strode through the grass. Further out from the house the blades grew longer though just as green and she felt she was seventeen again, wading through the green field as the wind blew across. It felt almost unearthly to be so carefree, like a spirit Jo thought, throwing her arms out wide to feel the gusty breeze rush through her. It was invigorating and it called to her about the secret Amy wouldn't share. Just what would she find by the pond?

Jo's arms fell to her side once more and she looked up to the sky as the ground beneath her levelled out and her pace slowed. The wind had brought with it a grey blanket of clouds that drew up over the baby blew from daybreak and Jo frowned at this turn of events. Henry had been right and he would surely lord over her with this extra victory later that evening when he showed her the statistics for the sales of her novel. Jo didn't care for such things but her partner it seemed delighted in factual evidence of results. Just another way to prove he was right Jo guessed a little grumpily before her eyes fell back on earth and on the greatest surprise of that day.

"Laurie!"

Not ten feet in front of her stood the tall young man who was staring right back, equally shocked.

"Jo!"

Neither made any motion to move and a long uncomfortable silence stretched between them where only a number of looks passed from one to the other, most landing safely on a shoulder or on the grass as both tried unsuccessfully to grasp the situation. At last Laurie pulled his hands out of his trousers and Jo looked away to the pines that lined the acre of green around them out to the wetland.

"I did not expect to see you." Jo looked back at that and she quickly read from Laurie's expression that he didn't. This surprised her and she stepped forward, admittedly a little miffed that his tone said he'd rathered she was someone else.

"Amy told me there was something I had to see," Jo clarified moving closer. She wrung her hands habitually, not even noticing the action though it held Laurie transfixed. Jo swallowed, "And here you are."

Laurie's eyes moved quickly away. "Yes, well I was told to expect the same thing." Laurie shifted his weight, his hands fisting and unclenching. "Though not you. Obviously."

A wry smile crossed Jo's lips at his unnecessary explanation. Here they were at long last and it seemed neither knew what to say. The wind picked up suddenly again and it whirled around them, catching Jo's hair and long dark skirt as it did Laurie's jacket tails and tie. The braced themselves awkwardly, looking across the wide pond to where it came and Jo hugged herself as Laurie prayed the words would come.

"Amy must have meant to say something."

"I believe we've just been told." Jo said, trying not to watch too carefully for the briefest of smiles on Laurie's lips.

"She might've given some warning. You mustn't've been here long. In the country, I mean." He winced at the state of his sentences. Jo looked down to the grass that rustled like waves against the beach. If only they'd both known.

"Actually I've been in Paris a month now."

"Oh."

The quiet settled between them again and Jo couldn't remember if it had ever been this horribly awkward the first time or not. She certainly recalled a café and social nuances she hated falling across the face of her dearest friend but not this insufferable silence with eggshells and bated breath.

"How long have you been here?"

"Three months." One of which Laurie considered he might have spent in her company had he known.

"Why Paris, if you don't mind my asking?" Jo bit her lip.

"Please," Laurie spared her a disappointed glance. "Ask away – you know to ask anything of me Jo. I only meant to move for my music – Paris is for her theatres. Amy was a happy coincidence though I must say." He added slyly watching the way Jo's mouth twisted.

"Why did Amy not say, I wonder?" Jo moved closer as Laurie did.

Laurie bent, "Why did you not ask?"

"Why did you walk away?" she asked what she had wanted to cities ago.

"Why didn't you love me?"

Both stopped short at that, inches away from each other and Laurie could feel himself choking as Jo quickly stared out at the pond with wide eyes. He hadn't meant to say that, ever bring it up again and he could see them in the garden at the back of Orchard House and his heart was breaking for her to say 'yes'. To say she did. But Laurie was no longer a boy and he had lived longer with the knowledge that the woman before him whose grey eyes did not fill with tears, whose frame did not shake even in the blustery wind did not and would not love him and he could live with it.

It didn't mean he had to be happy about it.

"So," Laurie straightened. "We should continue making polite conversation. I'm sure that's how it goes – and Amy would want it that way, don't you think Jo? I'm positive that's why we're here." He spoke quickly, almost spitting with acid. Jo said nothing but kept her gaze safely on his neck, his earlier question still ringing in her ears. "How is your success, your great big _plummy_ book about pirates and adventure and I daresay romance? Isn't that funny Jo that you should write about love as if you'd any authority on the subject! How could you when you are so entirely against the notion you'd rather throw away your best friend – your best chance! – than know your own heart!? Was the very thought that someone like me might care too much to bear Jo!? I tried – so hard – I did everything I could to make you proud and now I've spent the past three years undoing it all and you don't like me any better do you? Look there! I can see it in your face."

Jo's eyes grew cold and Laurie found he was breathing too heavily. She stepped back to look him over once and in her short appraisal Laurie had never been so humiliated in his life – not even when Amy drew her hand away from his disgrace. He reddened under that look and was angrier at his own reaction more than anything.

"You seem to have forgotten yourself Laurie. If you had any of the feelings you once professed, any sense of the friendship we shared you'd have read my novel before commenting on it. You'd have known me better Laurie. You shouldn't say such things when you know all to pieces about it – about anything! I'm ashamed of you Theodore Laurence," Jo swallowed and Laurie blinked.

"And I'll never love you Jo March. Never again!"

"Oh, I'll see to that!" Jo declared picking up her skirts before she marched off.


	20. Chapter 17

_A/N: Soz, I've had this written for about a month now but I've taken forever to put it up. Good news is I almost caught on fire writing this chapter. Damn _Homebrand_ matches._

Jo crossed the park in long strides, the skirt of her dress dragging behind her in billows more graceful than she presently noted. Dark clouds hung above in the French sky where the trees dared touch as they swayed about in warning or eager anticipation Jo could not say. She was racing back to further trouble she was sure but there was no stopping the cart's wheels when the brakes had fallen off at the top of the hill. And other long winded metaphors about losing control, she grumbled to herself.

She should never have come.

The sky rumbled with that thought and Jo spared the charcoal sky an irritated glance before she looked back to the house she was fast approaching. 'Only does it have to be so uphill?' She groused silently, feeling the pins in her hair dig evermore into her skull.

Laurie had no right to say such things; Jo clenched her fists, biting her lip into a harsh line. It would suit her just fine if he should be caught and drenched by the pond if he could not keep a civil tongue. If he couldn't even try.

Oh she would give Amy a few words!

Jo finally reached the back of the large old house, her skirts swirling at her feet and a scowl firmly stamped on her thin face. She opened the glass door and stepped inside the odd parlour just as the first drops or rain fell. She watched distractedly as the drops made the garden-facing glass walls of the room sparkle as though they had been showered with diamonds. It would have been a lovely sight had she not been in the mood to murder her sister for the unfortunate arrangement of the afternoon.

Really, she could almost taste Laurie's breath on her lips. Jo shook the feeling off forcefully, entering the house further to find Amy. Her sister had no idea what she had done and Jo would see to it that the girl would never make the same mistake. If she could cure Amy of malapropisms she could cure her of meddling.

Not finding the girl in the library or kitchen where a startled maid looked back with surprise, Jo climbed the richly coloured stairs to find her youngest sister watching the back lawn with a disturbing stillness.

"Amy," Jo gasped a little out-of-breath from her temper and searching. Amy would not look back at her and Jo launched into the speech she had begun to put together as she walked the lawn Amy watched. "Have you no idea what you've done? Amy in all the foolish things you've done, in all the thoughtless conspiracies this is by far the worst! I had no warning and he – you didn't tell us! How could you? You know-" Jo was ready to tell her they hadn't parted well when she realised Amy didn't know of Venice. They had both kept things from each other. "Well, it wasn't right lying like that and leaving us to- oh Amy, how could you?" Jo stood by the window, glaring at her shorter sister who still would not look at her. Fists clenched, Jo looked down to the carpet before she flexed her fingers lest she do something physical to Amy in her temper.

"I'm sorry, Jo" Amy finally turned to her in a minute movement that confused Jo further. "I was only trying to help." Her words sounded hollow in their whisper – without her voice behind them Amy sounded every inch the victim and before Jo could think of her sister's odd yet strangely familiar behaviour Amy left the hallway to lock herself in her room at the end.

It was only when Jo turned to the window, spying the long figure making his slow way up to the house that Jo recalled her sister's small voice when she had burnt Jo's book.

So there was more to it than a lie, Jo considered as her fist opened to finger the lace that hung loosely to the side of the window, pale against her skin as the rain beat against the pane.

…

Amy bit the tip of her thumb as she paced the spacious room, the dull light of such a horrid day colouring the pretty blues of her walls a sad grey. Just what had she done indeed? As she had told Jo, she really did intend to help. There was after all a small chance Laurie and Jo would speak and reconcile in their meeting after so many years. And an even smaller chance that they would rediscover the love they shared so openly when they were all children and Amy jealously coveted the possession of an elder sibling. And yet if Amy was honest with herself, as she often was when locked in the privacy of her room – unshared with a sister and miles away from a mother who might provoke guilt – she knew she had arranged their meeting with selfish reasons. Reasons that seemed inexplicably reasonable when Laurie looked at her as though she was home and everything wonderfully sensible in the world.

Amy sat at the window seat prior to standing again and reaching the other side of the room. There she paused, biting her thumb again, her other hand holding her elbow in worry before she hurried back to the seat. Yes, if Amy was honest with herself she had not told Laurie and Jo they would meet if only to see the greater chance that one of them would inevitably say the wrong thing and they would drift further apart. To see if Laurie would continue to sabotage the one thing Amy was certain he thought of most, even when the black and white keys fell between his fingers and he watched her with dark steady eyes. If Laurie did not try to win Jo over again there was also a good chance that he was not as in love with her as he had seemed, and there was a good chance he was moving on. There was therefore a good chance too that if he did not love Jo, and he did not love that French girl there was room for another. And there was the best of chances that other was-

A knock fell against her bedroom door and Amy looked away from where she had been staring out the window to the intrusive sound. The time for being honest with herself was over. Amy stood, smoothing the curls that fell to the side of her forehead so they sat with graceful spring as she crossed the room opening the door to find an abashed maid who informed her tea was ready and the others were waiting for her.

…

Jo tried to smile at Aunt March across the small table the company was currently seated at. It took almost no effort but when her warmth was returned only with a cool, calculating expression Jo quickly looked away to where she felt there should desperately be a window. Or at the very least, Amy. Where was she? What was taking so long?

Jo felt keenly how awful it was to have to flush red every few minutes under the intense stare of the man that sat across from her. She had forgotten this terrible side of Laurie's dark moods and worse she had forgotten this unbearable heat that prickled her face in embarrassing response.

Often when they had gotten over whatever had been said or done she would ask if he'd gotten any enjoyment out of it but was only ever rewarded with a mysterious shrug and rapid change of topic. But that had been years ago when he had college and there had been weeks of absences, not years and the worst of words and reactions.

Looking from the wall to Fred, Jo couldn't help but wonder about him. There sat a man who might busy himself with business and yet he remained firmly attached to the March's travelling party and was considered a confirmed match for Jo's youngest sister by the lady whom Jo sat beside.

"Well, Josephine, you've only been here a few hours and already your habitual tardiness has worn off onto our Amy." Jo's grave great aunt censured before picking up her saucer and taking one sip of the straight black liquid in the cup, brows rising imperiously in judgement. "I'm sure Amy would never behave so without your influence Josephine for I have never known her to be so impromptu to a meal."

Jo knew her aunt was fishing for an apology she would only dismiss and so she simply sipped her coffee in silence, wondering if anything took place in Fred's head for his total lack of expression when he was not engaged directly. Laurie, Jo knew without shifting her gaze a fraction was as colourful with his looks as his tone and it was with that knowledge she avoided the danger that was meeting her old neighbour's impressive stare.

"Forgive me," Amy at last entered the room and instantly both men were on their feet until she took her seat beside Jo who smiled at her in relief, forgetting in the moment that she was cross with the girl. Lucky for her Laurie seemed to have enough dark looks for them both and Jo quickly turned back to her china cup as Amy apologised in full to their aunt.

When she looked up again she caught Laurie watching someone else and was surprised to see it was Fred. Watching the Englishman herself, Jo saw how his entire manner lit up, seated next to Amy as he was. Her presence seemed to spark life back into his countenance and it was at that moment Jo knew with all the certainty that she knew her coffee was too weak, that Fred Vaughn was deeply in love with her sister. It did not bring the usual anxiety that came upon her when change blew in the winds of sisterly bonds nor did it ignite the hope and joy that Amy would have her way after all. It sounded, instead, a resounding warning that made Jo place the cup back on its saucer – Fred Vaughn would not survive if Amy was to change her mind and worse yet, if he was to know her true heart. Amy was doing more harm than good and Jo was certain, even as she watched Laurie watch Fred that she was the only one at the table who knew it in full.

…

He watched as Jo went through the motions of struggling to drink coffee that was not to her taste and replacing it on its saucer without the bumbling calamity of old that he hadn't known he'd missed until now. Did she not know that every little action, every quirk that was so decidedly familiar and recognisable set against the conversely new was slowly driving him mad on the opposite side of the table? Laurie toyed with his own beverage, decidedly against maintaining the farce of taking tea as he watched the others around him. Although when he meant others, he really meant the two March sisters – the youngest's greatest allure being her companionship with his old friend. Really her manner was strange in the English fellow's presence since he'd begged her help and it piqued his interest to no end and would have quite taken his full attention where it not Jo – his dreams, his past, his inescapable terrifyingly, desperately real Jo – sitting on the other side of this small table.

Laurie smirked as she continued to avoid his gaze and participate as little as he in the light conversation between the usual companions that resided in the house. He watched her lips twitch at Fred's inability to match wit with her sister over the state of Parisian housekeeping service and for one helpless moment he was back in Orchard House in front of a fire wondering what those lips might brand across his. Laurie blinked away the short memory and found himself taking a sip of his drink in an effort to wash away the moment's unbidden lapse.

Fred turned to him, halfway through a remark about some college team or another and Laurie found himself in the awkward position of having not paid attention to the conversation as it waited naturally for his reply.

"You should ask Miss March," he said thinking quickly. "She did so desperately want to go. She kept a better score than even Christopher Fuller if I remember," Laurie referred to college – the only clue he had – as he took another sip of the appallingly made coffee. Fred turned to Amy in surprise.

"Why," he said a little hesitantly, the only British accent in the room sounding odd in the quiet lull. "I had no idea you were to keen on sports."

"Oh not I," Amy charitably gave a short melodic laugh at Fred's mistake.

"The _other_ Miss March" Laurie clarified in a tone over his cup that turned even Aunt March's head.

"Forgive me," Fred cleared his throat before asking Jo a series of questions Laurie realised the fellow must have directed earlier to him. Again Laurie ignored the actual conversation in favour of watching. Indeed Jo's eyes lit up in the old way the would anytime boyish outdoor activity was raised for discussion and Laurie had the pleasure of her gaze brushing his several times when his college team was mentioned in her reminiscing.

The one and only time had been fortunate enough to attend a game had by far been the most memorable event of that year. Well, _school year_ he corrected his thoughts, feeling every time he returned home was as equally surprising and delightful as that event, even though it stood out as something he could not and would not forget.

Jo had jumped off the omnibus, carpet bag in tow, proudly bedecked in her own hand-made scarf and hat she boasted where _her_ team's colours when questioned. Laurie remembered laughing hard, wrapping an arm around her as he directed them to his dormitory, commenting that her team must've made the semi-finals without his knowledge because _his_ team's were maroon and yellow not blue and white. Jo had gone a deep red, slapping her forehead a number of times before moaning about the total absence of later editions on his own forsaken college in his house and really how was she to know when he hardly wore them ever! Laurie had laughed again and told her how much he missed her during semester, playfully tugging her hat's braids so that she smiled light-heartedly back instead of turning thorny at his need for sentiments. He just wanted her to know how he felt.

Really, Laurie considered as Jo took a long sip when Fred commanded the conversation again – hadn't that always been his mistake? Letting Jo know what he felt had never worked out for him for she almost always frowned back at his honesty and repaid him with cold shoulders and avoidances. Although, Laurie conceded, looking into his still mostly-filled cup that it was more what he said that she found so disagreeable and not that he said it. Perhaps, he thought, as series of '_No, don't_'s running though his mind as he looked back up to find her grey eyes on his.

Maybe he'd been just a little unfair by the pond.

…

Amy kissed her sister goodbye, her eyes over the thin girl's shoulder watching Laurie who dawdled by the gate to the estate. "You must come again, soon," she said a little absently before looking back at Jo to smile genuinely. "Really you wont leave us Jo, will you?" She asked sounding more like eight than eighteen and Jo smiled fondly, embracing her youngest sister once more.

"Only if there are no more surprises," she said quickly before letting go and heading off with a wave behind her. Aunt March proceeded immediately indoors, demanding assistance from both Fred and Amy but the latter lingered on the front step, looking out to the front gate some fifty metres away.

Jo swiftly caught up to Laurie and whilst it was clear he might've kept a sharper pace if he did not wish to speak to her, Jo found him to be silent. Unsure whether he was waiting for her to say something she opened her mouth only to find nothing came out except a sort of huff that sounded more like the girl they'd just farewelled.

Suddenly Laurie came to a halt, just before they'd reached the great black iron gate that loomed over even Laurie's head. Jo considered walking on but graciously stopped beside him, bracing herself for another round of overly emotional words.

"You're everything like your old self, you know." Jo looked up in shock, realising her mistake only too late. She met his steady gaze with her own and there was quiet as words that sounded more like mindless points of note more than anything were communicated far more seriously. She read that he was trying to reconcile her changes with his image of her in the past and that their earlier argument was an overreaction to his surprise. Laurie half-grinned in defeat when she was finished and he was not met with equal judgement of character from Jo. He turned to walk on. She smiled privately behind him – perhaps this was progress, for she knew that smile from when Laurie had been caught out wrong for thinking she'd been the one to lose his study notes in his first year at college. It was a half-hearted sign of acquiescence but Jo was glad to see it all the same.

"I'd hoped seeing the world wouldn't change me too much," she tried.

"Nothing could, Jo." Laurie spoke softly and they stopped again just at the gate. "I don't suppose you travel to Paris by foot in this weather?" he asked without really looking at her. Jo shook her head 'no'.

"Henry should be waiting for me."

Laurie heard the note of disappointment in her voice and yet he continued. "Ah yes, the English fellow with the tall hat and over-zealous watch, am I right?" Jo laughed at the description even if Laurie had meant it differently.

"Yes, that Henry." He saw her nodding as she moved to stand directly beside him. "I'm sorry for what I said earlier," Jo said more to her shoes than he before gathering her courage to look up. "I'm learning to say these things quicker," she cringed, "What I mean is to apologise sooner." Her toes scuffed the gravelled path and Laurie couldn't stop watching her even when she made his blood boil for all the wrong reasons.

"You say those things a lot, do you?"

"Oh and you!?" Jo interjected.

He looked out through the gate towards Paris. "Someone's waiting for me too," he said sharpish enough that Jo looked sorry again. Pulling the latch open for the little door within the enormous gate he stopped only to give her a queer short bow she recalled from Venice before stepping through and striding off towards the city.

Jo frowned after him, wondering if she'd done further damage before she stepped through the odd door herself, departing from the scene that held the attention of two others unseen.


	21. Chapter 18

_A/N: Oh the drama! The angst! This chapter is particularly full of it – but stick with it – it gets cheery. Special thanks to Hisui for the idea about Jo's ring – this one's for you._

The ride back to Paris was not usually a bumpy one but Jo had asked for them to take the scenic road that lead them out further before rounding back to the city. She had not said why to Henry who sat opposite in the small closed-box carriage he had obtained to take Jo to her night reading but it was her intention to avoid the man he had seen through the box's small window he deduced. He had recognised the man's tall height and familiar proximity to his friend from Venice and struggled to remember who he was to Jo. A neighbour, he finally settled on, wondering just how well one was supposed to know their neighbours in America, for the chap had been standing rather close, even for someone who knew her.

"How was your sister?" Henry enquired politely, watching as the question pulled Jo out of a silent reverie that had her giving the box wall a rather undeserving cross stare.

"Oh!" Jose brow rose finely in an effort to shake off her bad humour he supposed. "She's fine."

When Jo again fell silent he knew something was off, she always without sparing him – even if he should wish it – revealed all information about her family to him. There would usually be an apology in which she would explain it gave her comfort to speak of those she loved so far away and he understood and never asked her to stop.

"Are you unhappy with her?"

Jo's eyes snapped up at that and for a minute second he had spied his answer before Jo closed her expression again with an arched brow. "Why should I be? She is my sister and she is in France – it's nothing short of a divine conspiracy – of course I should love to have her here." Jo turned sharply back to the wall, biting the inside of her cheek and Henry resigned himself to the silence lest her mood turn on him.

…

Laurie slid down the back of the door exhausted. The emotions of the day had finally caught up with him and long, extremely solitary walk home hadn't helped any. He was left horribly alone with his thoughts about Jo the entire time and every stupidly wrong thing he'd said. He'd brought up love again; even spat it back in her face in his lowest moment. What had he done? He hit his head against the door in frustration, wishing the sharp pain that blossomed at the base of his skull could give him answers or better, peace of mind.

God, he thought holding his right index finger with his left hand, hunched over and grumpy, Jo had been back for so long and he hadn't known. He didn't even think to ask, trying as always to mask his infernal longing for a woman he both loved and hated. He was nowhere near as mad at Amy as he could tell Jo was though, for he guessed he had the youngest March to thank for sparing his feelings as long as she had. His sanity. But to leave him so wholly defenceless by the pond like that, Laurie had to wonder where the girl's priorities were. She obviously meant for Jo and he to take care of whatever came up between them and not to smooth over every little bump yet Laurie couldn't help but feel a little put out that she didn't care for him the way he'd supposed. She was his lifeguard in this mess and he'd relied on her so much that this let-down had left more than its mark. He was reeling from having been cast out at sea without even a buoy to help him stay adrift. Amy had left him completely alone in the dark and literally sitting as such in his tiny room made him think he'd been a little too quick in forgiving her.

He leant back against the door again, looking out the window on the opposite side of the room finding it as gloomy and overcast as he felt. Night had always been welcoming to his selfish little pains but he found no comfort in the dark now he knew Jo shared the same light. Was she very far from him at this moment? Was she thinking about him? She must, they'd only parted a few hours ago – he hoped, a little flicker of something lighting inside his chest.

Oh this was torture!

Laurie fumbled around the inside of his coat, looking for the little pocket he'd sewn in a year or so ago. He'd felt more than a little foolish for doing such a woman's job that he knew his sentimentality had gotten the better of him the moment he'd fumbling stuck a needle through the fine material. Laurie's fingers caught on the opening and he carefully pulled out the treasured prize. He rolled the cool metal under his thumb never wondering about its dull shine in the darkened room. He knew its contours by heart, the weight of it more precious than its monetary value by far for it reminded him of better times, the best of times when he'd felt more loved and cared for than ever. It was his way of holding her when he could not in actuality, his last piece of her when she'd been so far away – in heart and body but he hadn't been able to wear it since Venice.

Jo's ring.

He slipped the beloved ring onto his little finger, smiling softly when its well-worn face, tiny indentations and scratches from use glinted dully back. He'd loved this ring probably better than she'd ever loved him.

The door began to press into his back from his odd angle and Laurie shifted until his head was supported against it as he looked up at the ceiling of rafters and the above room's floorboards. His fingers toyed with the ring absently as he replayed all he'd said and thought since he'd stepped into Fred's estate that morning. He shouldn't have snapped like that at Jo – his heart had felt very differently when his eyes first met hers. His memory never could do justice to the features he so ardently cared for. And yet his mouth and sore feelings had gotten in the way again. He felt they always would until he learnt to better them.

Until, he quietly reckoned, quashing the gleaming of that unnamed emotion, until he let her go.

One thing was certain - Jo was back and she wasn't just going away overnight. He'd been a pig, a liar and a total witless mope in her presence; he was rude for staring, there was no one to come home to and he still wasn't over her at all but he felt sure he could change this. He just needed more time and a world of patience, from Amy or himself he didn't know. A good strong whiskey wouldn't go astray either.

He didn't know if he could ever be friends with Jo again.

But did he want to be her enemy?

Laurie shut his eyes, touching the ring as he felt sleep tug at him.

…

She had swallowed her pride and asked Amy for the address only to be surprised at the location. It seemed Laurie lived only three streets away from the place she shared with Henry. All this time and he had been so much closer than she ever imagined.

Jo stepped back from the door, feeling her confidence shrink. Perhaps coming unannounced really was a bad idea – they had not parted on the best of terms and nothing in Laurie's manner suggested she would be received well. Still, Jo considered how were they to ever reach good terms if neither of them tried?

Moving back to the door she quickly tapped at it, hoping he was alone and not with the 'someone' he'd mentioned the day before. There was no reply for a full minute and Jo felt every second tick by as the knot in her stomach tightened. Oh what if he was not even home? Just as she began to feel the full extent of her foolishness a voice called. "Who is it?" but before she could answer the door was opened to reveal a very disgruntled Laurie.

"Jo!" he looked as shocked as yesterday and Jo smiled sheepishly.

"Hullo."

Wordlessly Laurie stepped aside to let Jo in. She quickly scanned the room as the young man closed the door behind her and was happy to see it empty if not smaller than she assumed.

"What brings you to Chateau d'Laurence?" Laurie asked gesturing grandly to the tiny space around them, not sounding overly enthusiastic with her sudden appearance. Jo turned with her hands behind her back in a move he associated with her coming to tell him something important. Laurie froze, immediately anxious.

"It's isn't Amy is it?"

"Oh – no nothing like that," Jo stepped closer. "Actually I came to apologise for yesterday."

"On whose behalf? If it's for Amy I'd rather hear it from her."

"Mine. Laurie, I'm sorry we came to such blows. I hadn't known you were even in France until I saw you and I know it was the same for you. We neither of us had a fair chance." Jo wished to remind him that they could get along as they had that one day in Venice when he'd been his old self and had acted as tour guide. But he could hardly look straight at her now in the small room and it seemed unwise. "I'm sorry for what I said."

Laurie sighed and moved closer, putting one hand in his pocket as the other ran through his shortly cropped hair. Jo had come to make peace when he had just considered war before he answered the door. Maybe he'd been a bit hasty in choosing his position but she continued to catch him entirely unawares.

"I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have come – it was too presumptuous of me," Jo motioned to leave.

"Jo," he stepped in front of her. "I'm the one who should be sorry and we both know it." That was unlike him, even the old Laurie would never admit his fault, but Jo supposed her lead had some effect as she watched Laurie's throat work over the difficult words. "I'm sorry for the things I said. I didn't mean it. I hardly mean anything anymore." Laurie laughed bitterly and the sound hurt to hear.

"We were both upset, it's understandable. Really." Jo's hands dismissed their apologies and Laurie begged himself to take them. Jo however folded them simply as she stood looking out the window. Now wasn't that a picture? Laurie thought to himself, staying back to catch the loveliness that was Jo's reposed figure by the single window in his undersized flat. The setting sun hit her hair and it reminded him of brandy, the rich ginger and burgundy tones of her naturally brown hair flaring like flint in the light against her rich creamy skin. He hadn't forgotten that skin or its tender touch in difficult times, nor its coldness and deliberate indifference when he warmed like a moth.

Laurie eventually approached Jo but was careful to leave a space between them, never better aware of the common courtesy of distance between a man and woman than when she stood beside him. So much had changed between them and though his heart yearned to take her hand as old Laurie resigned himself to gripping the back of his lonely chair.

"How can I ever begin to know you again?"

Jo turned to him at the softly spoken question but he was not met with the pitiful excuse he expected. "I might be everything you remember Teddy, but you're nothing like I do." His heart leapt at the use of his name even, as always, Jo's words burnt in their surprise and sting and he turned to the window as she had.

"Something has made me this way."

Jo flinched. "I have no right to ask of you what I know Amy has, Laurie." Laurie nodded – it was as he expected and Amy had reported everything to her sister. "I cannot undo what you have done – your choices are your own and what I say won't change them, not now when you are so set in destroying everything good in your life."

"You don't know me!"

"I don't."

"You presume!" Jo stepped back at the ferocity in his tone. She was usually spared from this side of his anger but then she knew she deserved it as well as she knew her coming-over was useless.

"God has left your life, Teddy." She moved towards the door.

"No, Jo." Laurie caught her arm, trapping her. "You did. _You_ have left my life."

"Then let me go."

It was that simple and yet Laurie could not move his fingers, couldn't lessen his grip even if the Almighty himself appeared and commanded him the great feat. Jo stared back as determined as ever and he knew she had not come simply to apologise.

"I can't."

"Then please," Jo moved closer and Laurie lost his breath, "let us be friends or it should end here." And there was the truth; the reason she had come.

"Friends? Friends… Jo you know – that can never be enough for me."

Jo moved. "I have to go," she said quickly, trying to make her escape. Laurie held her wrist a moment longer, desperate to read in her eyes some sign of desire – something other than the benign friendship he was so apt at muddling. She stared back and minutes ticked past before his gaze fell from hers with a flush colouring his ears in earnest.

"Alright," he said, letting her go.

…

Bella sidestepped to press herself against the wall as a woman rushed down the stairs with the most serious of faces she had seen. It was a look she associated with one man only and as soon as the woman had passed Bella resumed climbing the staircase to Laurie's apartment.

She rapped on the door, opening it without an answer, a habit born form close quarters and a heart she had left behind somewhere in India. "Laurie, oo' was that girl?"

The musician stood slumped over the little table by his window and Bella could see he was in no kind mood.

"Not now," he practically growled and she stepped back, expecting violence from such a tone. "You'll have your music tomorrow," he spared her one look in his softened voice and she caught a glimpse of the boy she'd met before Italy, before his European role and a mending heart.

What had happened?

Bella nodded quickly, even though it was clear he was no longer aware she was still there. The tall lady left the room in silence, musing on the one name in Laurie's past that might cause such a noticeable disturbance and it was then that Bella knew she had met 'Jo'.

…

Laurie blew out the candle satisfied that anything worthwhile was already committed to the paper he now shuffled in the dark. He had spent the better part of a month composing a new opera – new characters with different archetypes and a new sound but after Jo's visit everything had changed. The best parts of old refrains were now embedded in his new manuscript, a pretty and light-sounding French piece that echoed more of doves and bluebirds than the brash honest gait of the German marches he had added that night.

Two women now demanded his stage and both were strong in different ways but as he wrote the opera progressed and he found that he could not keep them equal. Not even when he shut his mind to whom they both so obviously represented. Laurie's writing was skewed – heavily so - and there was only one who could ever lead in the end and he had already chosen who would, even before he'd written the first not, thought of the first leitmotif or even sketched the first characters. His libretto had been set and he hadn't known it, not until he released Jo's wrist that earlier afternoon.

He moved across the room in darkness, knowing the layout well. When he reached the bed Laurie pulled off his socks, stripped his shirt and trousers before donning the nightshirt he kept under his pillow. Finally ready he climbed into bed whistling his 'March breeze' quietly. Jo wanted to be friends, it was so like her but so impossible and yet a great part of himself was ready to do anything to please her. He could not disappoint Jo and the only time he had, Laurie had caused his greatest unhappiness yet. But was it strictly sensible to race back to the woman who had been the root of all this? Laurie pictured Jo's red face accusing him of being a coward in blaming her for his choices and he pulled the blankets around him, turning on his side to face the wall.

He needed to learn to keep his mouth shut when it came to Jo. If they could then last more than five minutes without argument they might just be able to be friends. It wasn't her fault he knew, despite three years of behaving and believing otherwise, that Jo couldn't love him. If anything it was his Laurie decided, feeling the tugs of sleep as his eyes slowly closed. He had to behave as Amy said, as Jo hinted, if he was to make anyone love him. Should Jo like the man he might become from such advice or better yet love that man then he surely could not hate her for it.

One thing was certain from all of this – he was still admittedly a little in love with her and now it was worth becoming the better man if she would even just smile at him again.

…

Jo was reading, her feet tucked neatly under her chair and not on the coffee table as she longed to do as she once did as a girl when Henry announced, "There's a strange chap at our door!" Jo looked over to the Englishman who stood at the window looking down into the street below. He failed to mention he'd recognised the 'strange man' and Jo was caught between asking him to let the man in or offer him a chair for his face had frozen.

The quiet girl who had carried their bags up that first day appeared at the door to the room and Jo smiled at her.

"_Excusez-moi_, Monsieur Laurence wishes to see you Mademoiselle." Jo felt her heart stop for a second before she stood, her forgotten book clattering to the floor.

"Oh me!" she exclaimed picking the book up as quick as she could and placing it on the low side-table, gathering her skirts about her. "I'll be right down," she called to the girl who vanished with the news. Jo stood feeling immeasurably silly as she patted her hair down striding to the door at once, entirely forgetting Henry.

"Ahem," he coughed politely, folding his arms awkwardly as she turned around, a blush on her cheeks not by his design.

"Excuse me!" Jo squeaked before taking a deep calming breath and quitting the room without another glance at her partner.

Jo took the stairs two at a time, never minding the state of her skirt as her heart beat in double time. Laurie had come! He meant to be friends! She could not stop the smile that spread across her face like wildfire for all the tea in China.

It was with this delight Laurie was blessed with greeting – Jo's long bloomer-clad legs and the edges of her petticoats before she pulled up fully at the base of the stairs, cheeks bright and eyes alight as she dropped her skirts to their usual state.

"Laurie!"

He wasn't sure he could ever tire of her greeting him with such surprise or enthusiasm.

"Jo," he stepped closer unsure whether he should take her hand despite how entirely inappropriate the action might be. "I wasn't sure you'd be home."

"You caught us before brunch," she said, unable to shake the heat from her cheeks. It almost felt like the coldness of yesterday was all but an awful dream and Laurie had never looked at her with anything but the familiar warmth of friendship. Jo tried uselessly to clamp down her feelings, knowing well she as getting carried away and quite possibly reading more into his appearance than what he intended. "Would you care to join us?" she asked a little graver as she stepped off the final stair. This brought her directly before him and had Jo been any other girl at that moment Laurie would have thought her terribly forward. As it was he simply smirked, leaning over her.

"Of course I would."

"Excellent!" Jo croaked, wishing her heart would stop fluttering like a dragonfly when he rocked on his heels and rested his hand on the banister by her shoulder. When had she become so aware of his presence? His hand on her wrist flashed through her mind and Jo looked away when she called to the maid.

After informing the young girl they would be joined by another for brunch the pair ascended the staircase, Jo in front and all jitters where Laurie dawdled with smirks. Jo opened the door to the parlour with a weak smile for the young man who waited for her to enter first. Musing over his mannerisms she walked though backwards, quizzing Laurie with a look he knew well. 'What are you up to?' she questioned silently but he simply grinned mysteriously and followed her in, shutting the door with one hand behind him as he loomed over her smaller figure.

A rustle on the carpet brought to Laurie's attention another person in the room and his arm fell from the door to his side as he recognised the man.

"Henry, you've met Laurie," Jo said gesturing between the two men politely.

Laurie looked down to gauge Jo's expression as the Englishman crossed the room. Really did she know how her thoughts were written across her face so plainly? Before he could read anything further from Jo's pinched look, the shorter fellow stuck out his hand.

"Henry Thompson, - I believe it was Venice?"

The pair tensed at the mention of that particular city but still Laurie took the man's hand. He gripped it firmly; pleased to see it was as uncalloused as his own if not smaller and just as pale. "Theodore Laurence. Yes it was."

Jo watched the two carefully from the side, wishing she knew what the sudden tightness in Laurie's jaw meant and the fact that they had yet to end the handshake. She could guess of course but that was a dangerous path if she'd learnt anything and this sudden turn of Laurie's balanced on her unspoken acceptance.

"Shall we sit?"

Seated once more around the sofas in the richly coloured room, Jo begun to relax until Laurie's eyes found hers. Gone was the distance and uncompromising malice she had come to know and in its stead was a new calculating look, one in which she hoped the warmth was not just amusement for her constant shade of red.

"I'm afraid we will not be hosts very long this morning," Henry suddenly said by way of conversation. "Jo has a reading at one, you see. So sorry." She thought his smile oddly lacking with his apology. Laurie looked to Jo and she folded her hands, fearing her legs would move restlessly as she tried to deflect Henry's inadvertent rudeness.

"It's for that book," she explained needlessly, cringing when she recalled Laurie's thoughts on her novel by the pond.

"I never did find out what it was about."

"It's about the sea," Jo said, reading apology in his eyes. "'Fraid there's no pirates though." Laurie smiled at the private joke, infinitely relieved that she had not made some cutting remark about his ignorant comments two days before, and pleased ever more by the increasing twitch under her friend's moustache.

"I daresay you should give it a read." Henry suggested.

Thankfully brunch was served at that point and Jo was saved from having to hide her mortification over her partner's words and instead she walked Laurie to the table, his arm linked with hers as though they were rambling through the brush and not moving from one French room to the next. Henry sat across from them and the smell of warm pastry and freshly cut fruit put aside any sniping commentary and awkward glances.

Jo bit into her croissant and could not help but wonder what miracle had changed Laurie's mind to bring him to sit beside her and take brunch. He did not stare or brood but ate silently, with even, dare she notice a smile about his eyes. It was as if another person had taken up residence within his body and had finally seen reason. She passed him the plate of butter and did not care if Henry should see her smile with a mouthful of pastry at her oldest and dearest friend in the world.

She would not change that moment for anything.

…

"I'm sorry to cut short your visit, Laurie. Truly, I forgot what a stickler Henry was for keeping time, and you know better than anyone how bad I am for punctuality. Well, anyone save Aunt March. I think that dear old woman will never forgive me for coming late every day for four years."

Laurie found himself smiling along with Jo and though he felt surreal and totally out-of-place in such a narrow foyer – really the space between the stairs and door – he took her hand and squeezed it chummily.

"Does 'sorry' lose its meaning if I say it one more time?" he asked, curving his grin into something more sober when she blinked back, staring at their hands. "Because Jo, I really do mean it, though I'm sure it didn't seem it yesterday. I was not… myself. I have not been for some time it seems and it took you to show me that," he added, a little more bashful. "I do want us to be friends again."

"You are like day and night, Teddy," Jo said wryly, still unable to tear her eyes away from their hands for too long. "You know what I want. It _is_ what I want, only I'm so glad you do. Teddy I thought you were lost."

Laurie said nothing though he thought '_I was'_ with a less of a smile, before he topped his head with his hat and set off, feeling as though a new chapter had turned in his life.

…

She dreamt she was floating. Jo stretched her arms out lazily in the water, enjoying the gentle tug of the river's slow, steady current. A hand brushed hers and she opened her eyes to see Laurie drifting beside her smiling widely as though nothing had passed between them and they were still the best of friends. Jo smiled back but felt as though something was lost and when he took her hand she did not feel the usual thrill, the sensation of mischief and laughter and the promise for a whole lot of trouble that would be worth every lecture.

"This doesn't feel right," she told him and Laurie frowned.

"You don't want me to love you."

She swallowed, raising her head from the water to look at him better. "You don't?" she asked pulling her hand from his.

"This is what you wanted." He explained and when his eyes flickered to the space between them she looked down to find herself naked. Jo quickly turned to duck her body under the water, glaring at the white shirt that billowed around Laurie's arms. Why wasn't she dressed?

"Don't look," she warned and at last the fire returned to his eyes and she recognised her dearest friend in his look. His hands reached for her shoulders under the water, one accidentally brushing her breast and she flushed red, yet could not look away. He might change into the stranger again.

"It's better this way." Laurie said matter-of-factly, his fingers around her shoulders and she nodded, feeling her skin tingle. He was closer than she thought and as his black eyes bored into hers she felt a heat creep between her legs to her fingers and toes and she suddenly held his face.

"It _is_ better."

Jo sat up in bed, still feeling her extremities tingle from the dream. She shut her eyes and could see Laurie's gaze, feel the warmth in his look as they swam. Feeling blindly down her body Jo's hands caught her nightdress and she fell back against the pillow with a sigh. She did not want Laurie to love her because she could not love him. She could not, Jo repeated over and over til she fell asleep once more.

…

Amy smiled as Laurie took the seat beside Jo. It was a warm morning and Fred was passing around the lemonade the maid brought to them on the patio. Aunt March remained indoors with one of her Parisian friends – she had so few that Caroll did not know that Amy made certain the old woman spoke to them at least once a week. It was not certain she would ever see them again once they left the country and Amy wanted her Aunt's trip to heal more than just her tired bones as she felt certain her spirit was lonelier than she pretended.

Fred passed her cold drink to her and Amy thanked him, ignoring the constriction in her chest when she saw Fred remained standing. If he wished to observe the park rather than sit with her Amy could be perfectly happy – it was only the silent communication she could not understand passing between her two guests that troubled her, she was sure.

"You know I've never had a better sleep than last night," Amy announced rather spontaneously. Jo and Laurie tore their eyes away from each other and Amy relaxed, sipping her lemonade.

"I cannot say the same." Said Jo, her gaze flicking back to Laurie's face as inconspicuously as possible. "I'm afraid I have not slept soundly for some time."

Amy opened her mouth to question her sister further but Jo was interrupted before she could speak. "Bad dreams?" Laurie asked, looking at the girl beside him as he reached for a biscuit on the table between them and Amy.

Jo was oddly silent as she took a drink of her lemonade but Amy caught her sister's surprised look in her crossed brow. Jo chose to nod her answer and Laurie leaned back thoughtfully.

"I've neither slept ill or better," Fred interjected, Moving back to the party for his own biscuit.

"Funny," Laurie said to Jo as though he hadn't heard the Englishman. "I've been the same, although not all of my dreams have been bad," he grinned, waggling his eyebrows at Amy when Jo scowled.

"Oh?" Amy asked.

"I don't think we want to know," Jo quickly cut in, sending a look to Laurie as though he'd just upset one of Meg's babies. Laurie wisely remained silent, smothering an amused smile with his lemonade.

"It seems Paris suits you best then, Amy," Fred supplied finally taking his seat beside the girl. His eyes did not reach hers however and the strangeness in behaviour did nothing to settle Amy's uneasiness.

"Seems so," Laurie agreed easily though he watched Jo.

"_Pardon_?" A maid appeared beside Amy trying to sound as unintrusive as possible. "_Oui_?" Amy turned to face the awkward-looking girl. "Someone is 'ere for Mademoiselle Marsch." Both sisters looked at each other. "'E says his name is Monsieur Thompson and it is important."

Jo stood quickly, stopped only by a sudden rush of blood to her head. "Oh!" she swayed, and Amy called "Jo!" A hand was on Jo's back and she blinked to clear her head. "Sorry – just a bit of vertigo," she explained opening her eyes to find Laurie beside her trying to disguise his concern. Quickly removing his hand he stepped out of the way to let Jo pass as she moved to follow the maid.

"Excuse me."

Amy nodded as she watched Laurie.

…

"Ah, there you are," Henry spoke as soon as Jo entered the room. "Blasted manners these people have – sorry I should say why I came."

Jo took a seat motioning for the Englishmen to do the same. He placed his hat upon his leg looking about the room as though he hadn't the chance when waiting for her.

"Are you well?" Jo asked at his inattention.

"What? Oh yes, quite. Thank you." Henry fiddled with the brim of his hat and Jo braced herself for bad news.

"Are you certain?"

"Hmm? Yes, of course." Henry released the hat and looked at her. "Sorry to interrupt you." Jo waited patiently, one brow raised in slight irritation at his avoidance. "Well it's just that I've had a rather odd telegram. From London you see. Jo, I need to tell you that the company has called us back actually and although we've had a lovely time I think they're right, so we best be ready to ship out on Friday."

Jo gawked at the man before her. "Sorry?"

"Yes well, it seems our tour is at its end and all that."

"But," Jo began, her hands moving to the cushioning of the chair. "I thought we were doing well – that our sales had made up what we lost in Rome. Isn't that what you said not two days ago?" Henry, I can't believe this." Henry looked very sorry but he offered no consolation. Jo was in shock and yet all she could think was how terrible the timing was for she would never get to know Laurie again now. And wasn't that a surprise, Jo considered, that the first thing she should think of was Laurie? Jo faced her business partner again and schooled her features into something less gobsmacked.

"I can't leave just yet," she told him calmly. Henry frowned.

"I don't understand. Jo, the company has ended the tour; there will be no further funds. What hype and extra sales that could be made have been; there is nothing else left."

"Well, I will remain here on my own funds then. I'm told I have made a substantial amount not only on this tour but before. It is impossible for me to travel back to London at this time Henry, my sister is here and my place is with her."

"I understand that you're enjoying yourself Jo," Henry patted his knee. He didn't understand at all since last week when she had almost turned him to stone with her looks in the carriage; he was sure her sister was the cause. "But we never intended to stay more than a month. Everything has its end. Jo is there nothing I can say that will induce you to return to London… with me."

Jo looked up at that last addition and caught something in Henry's manner and look she had not expected to ever see. He was pleasing with her at that moment and yet there was something else under his sincerity. Another reason than just business.

Jo stood quickly. "Perhaps we should discuss this later. Would you join us? I'm sure the others will be wondering what has kept me."

Henry rose slowly and followed Jo through the house to the patio out back.

…

When Jo took her seat beside Laurie the tall fellow saw how pale she'd become. Just what had happened when her partner has called? The newest guest who'd been formally introduced (quite distractedly on Jo's part) to the rest of the group stood awkwardly behind Amy's lounge as he looked out across the estate's land. Laurie supposed he was somewhat a stranger to wealth and sat back in his chair in an effort to cover his obvious concern for Jo.

He looked across to Amy who placed her drink carefully on the table, calling in French for further refreshments for their guest. Jo shrunk a little in her seat and Laurie wondered at her inability to meet anyone's gaze. Laurie munched on his biscuit thoughtfully as he caught the uncomfortable set of Mr Thompson's shoulders and Jo's own tension. She sat perched on the edge of their lounge looking like a bow tightened ready to release. Another round of lemonade was sent and Henry took the offered glass wordlessly, his eyes on Jo whose hands had reverted to their childhood clumsiness.

"Oops," she winced before smiling sheepishly at the maid as her glass almost slipped from her hand. "Thank you."

Laurie watched Jo in amusement as she juggled the chilled glass from one hand to the other, pulling out a well-worn pair of gloves from her shirt pocket. "Marmee did say you never could go without a pair in society," Jo winked at her sister and Amy grinned back, her own glass now comfortably nestled in her lap.

"Nor a handkerchief!"

"Oh heavens yes. There's a piece of advice to take to the grave," Jo joked attempting to pull her gloves on with one hand.

"Here," Laurie offered to take her drink and Jo smiled her thanks.

"Always had trouble with gloves," she explained to Henry who remained awkwardly on the edge of the party. "Don't think I've ever had a pair I haven't managed to soil some way." Finally pulling on the ugly beige pair Jo flexed her fingers. "There! Thank you, Laurie," she turned to the young man offering the widest smile he'd seen that day. Laurie found himself smiling back as he passed her glass, missing as he was caught in the odd moment Jo's klutzy fingers that did not grip the drink well enough when he released it. The cold beverage spilled into her lap and Jo cried in dismay.

"Oh Me! Christopher Columbus! Now I've gone and done it."

A stream of apologies came from Laurie who put the glass on the table and pulled out his handkerchief and started wiping up her dress. Amy called for the maid and Henry stepped forward, putting a hand on Laurie's arm at Jo's 'Don't worry, it's my fault's

"Is that really appropriate?" The Englishman asked at the motions Laurie was making in helping clean Jo's lap. Both of them stared up at the man in confusion before it dawned on them what it looked like and Laurie quickly pulled away as Jo turned a beet red.

Fred tried gallantly to hold back a smile and swallowed his laughter as he set his glass beside everyone's on the table and Amy stood to assist the maid with Jo.

"Oh Jo," Amy spoke with a tiredness from her experience with Jo's messes. "Come, let's clean you up." Jo smiled her apology to the men, standing as the maid took one of her arms and Amy the other and led her back to the house.


End file.
